All Good Things
by sansbear
Summary: SPOILER WARNING: based on spoilers from 7.13 and beyond. My take on how Luke and Lorelai get it all out and move on.
1. Things are Different

Disclaimer: All characters and places belong to ASP, DR, and CW.

Things are different.

The things he used to feel upon waking are different. The thoughts he has when he's showering are different from those he had years ago, even when he was with her. His mind and body looks forward to different things now, things he never thought they would look forward to.

One time, late at night after he closed the diner a little early to take April to some kind of technological convention, he sat at what once was his plain brown table now spruced up with a cerulean blue table cloth and a cactus sitting squarely in the middle and drank a cup of coffee.

It was an alien experience to him, drinking what he regularly served, drinking what coursed through her veins 24/7. And while he sat there in his slightly different apartment, drinking a beverage he shouldn't be drinking so late at night, he thought. It's not something that new to him, thinking. But this type of thinking was new-why?

He wondered why he felt different. He chalked it up to her 'now or never' speech, to the next day pleading, then the next day's begging. He chalked it up to the 'I slept with Christopher' that so easily escaped her lips. But that wasn't it. It was the thought, the persistent thought as he drove away, a single purpose in mind, that he could have done better. He sipped at the coffee and toyed with that thought. He could have done better. And he should.

He wakes up, feeling slightly together. The impulse to just lay his head back down and stare at the ceiling disappeared months ago and he gets up, stretching. Looking at the clock, he sees that it's 3:45 and he changes out of his pajama pants and pulls on a hoodie, some sweatpants, and his sneakers. He jogs down the steps and leaves the diner through the back, grabbing a beanie he leaves on a hook by the door on his way out.

Tugging it on, he starts out, the puffs of air and the sound of his footfalls the only thing to disturb the cold, night air. This is when he likes Stars Hollow the most-when it's early morning quiet and he knows almost everyone is asleep, when the day is just another date on the calendar and holds nothing.

He jogs past familiar places, always taken with how familiar buildings look unfamiliar without lights, without people going in and out. He passes Babette's house and keeps himself from making more than a passing glance at her house, from dwelling on the fact that there is a tricycle on the front porch and that her walkway hasn't been shoveled properly.

He breathes deeply when he passes her house, calming the rapid beating of his heart that picked up when he came upon the house. He doesn't torture himself with thoughts of whether she and Chris are intertwined in a sleepy embrace anymore. He can go so far as to say that the pain of knowing that they probably are lessens every time he jogs pass her house.

He slows his pace when he comes to the bridge, coming to a complete stop in front of the lake, hands on his hips, breathing in the sharp winter air. He revels in the stillness, loving how it ripples through him, settling him and if the jog didn't do it, waking him. He suddenly thinks that April might like this. Well, maybe not the waking-up-at-a-quarter-to-four-and-jogging-in-about-near-freezing-temperatures part but the stillness by the lake part.

He nods, thinking that maybe he'll mention it to her this afternoon and takes another deep breath before turning around, ready to run, when he sees her.

All thoughts flee his brain and his body freezes. She is wearing a heavy coat, a scarf wrapped around her neck, a knit cap covering long, curly, wavy dark hair. Her top half is appropriately attired, but on her bottom half she is wearing thin cotton pajama pants and what he can only guess to be footsies.

She is staring at him, not in the way that would indicate she is surprised to see him there, but in that way that has his heart pounding and his palms sweating and the flesh on his neck itching.

She takes a step towards him and his brain switches on, thoughts flooding in and bombarding every center of neural processing. Oh, God, she's there, she 's _right _there.

_Say something_. What should I say? How's Richard? Emily? Rory? Haven't seen you around, everything going good? _Of course everything's going good, you idiot, like she'll tell you, "No, everything's not fine, I'm miserable and Chris…"_ Out early? Didn't think you exercised, you practically destroyed that gym card when we busted-_no, don't bring up any reminiscing moments. No moments, you've had enough of those to last you a while and then some. _

"It's cold," he says, saying the first thing that didn't have anything to do with them and they had no control over.

She opens her mouth to say something, then closes it and looks at him some more. His body is still tense and he looks like he just swallowed a spoonful of ipecac. Apparently, he didn't expect to see her anytime soon, not after the hospital.

She decides to respond to his statement, hoping to at least put him at some kind of ease.

"Yeah, I thought you didn't like cold," she says and gives him a knowing smile and he thinks back to that time when she woke him up for 'first snow' and how he grumbled while she stood there, looking up at the sky, her belief so strong.

He shrugs. "Yeah, well, I figured it's about time I acquaint myself with cold, you know, since I do live in Connecticut."

She nods. "That makes sense."

He nods and moves to say something else, but he doesn't. Small talk isn't exactly his area and he'd rather dive into the lake than stay in her presence and feel like someone is pouring vinegar down his throat.

"Well, uh, stop by the diner for some coffee later, warm yourself up," he says, moving pass her.

"Wait," she says, grabbing his wrist. Her hand is warm despite the cold and her fingers grip his wrist firmly, as though he's going to slip through her grasp.

He stops, not looking back at her, not trusting himself to do so.

"Luke," she says in a soft, slightly pleading voice and he turns his head, looking at her over his shoulder.

Those blue eyes are shimmering and he grits his teeth against them, refusing the impulse to ask her what's wrong, to forget about the diner and the bread guy and stay with her until the pain turns into a defined jab to the breastplate.

She drops her hold and hugs her body, sniffling and pursing her lips.

"I just wanted to say thanks, thanks for being there for Emily, Rory, and for…and for me. Thank you for helping my family."

He turns his head back to the path and let's out a long stream of cold air, thinking of what to say.

"Don't thank me, Lorelai. It's just what I do."

He jogs away, feeling her eyes on his back, burning him. Any other time he would've turned back or said more, but whatever personal thing she's going through, he can't be the one to help her go through it, not now, not when things are different.


	2. Getting to the Breakers

Her voice echoes through his head, waking him from what was a relatively good sleep. He looks over at the clock. 2:53 am. He groans and lays his head back down on the pillow. It would be fruitless to try to go back to sleep, with her voice bouncing off the walls of his skull. He stares up at the ceiling of his apartment, one arm resting on his forehead.

What was in that 'Wait'? It sounded heavy, loaded with words she wanted to say, but she was afraid. He closes his eyes and the memory comes up, playing out in his mind's eye. Yes, she was afraid. He saw it in those blue eyes, in the way that they shimmered at him, begging him to hear her out, to talk to her, to listen to the words he knows sooner or later will come, probably in a torrent of emotion, in a long ramble that will splinter into a thousand tangents that she will neatly tie together with one simple sentence and he will stand there, confused and in awe and wanting to do what she doesn't say, even after all those words.

Words. She's good with words. Sometimes he thinks she was born to talk, to mock others with her quick wit and unrelenting knowledge of all things culture. How many times has she roped him with words? He smiles, recalling the hundreds of times she said something he couldn't refute. And it's not just what she says, it's the way she says it. The slight inflection she puts on certain words when she wants to make a point, the special way she says his name, drawing out the 'lu' and cutting short the 'ke'.

The smile quickly vanishes when he thinks of how quiet she was last year, when she was with him. He can see now when she bit back her words, how she would duck her head and fidget with her hands, or how she would look away and purse her lips, as if she were swallowing cotton balls. He sighs and turns over, facing the kitchen area. He was an idiot. A huge, unmitigated ass idiot. And now because of his running into her at the lake a week ago, he can't sleep and he's taken to analyzing everything, even the things that he shouldn't analyze, that force him to sit and clear his mind for fear of kicking something and breaking his foot.

He throws off the covers and gets up, stretching his increasingly weary muscles. He shuffles to the kitchen sink and leans over it, brushing the curtains aside to look out the window. Another dark early morning, another cold, bitter day. How can she do this? How can one brief, unexpected encounter leave him feeling restless and angry, grumpier than normal?

He makes himself a cup of tea and turns on the television, watching ESPN Classic until it's time to open the diner.

The breakfast rush comes and he decides to change it up, sending Caesar up front and going in the back to make food. The repetitive process of making pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, omelets creates a sort of lull in him and his mind finally eases, concentrating on the orders Caesar yells back at him and making breakfasts. He's in the middle of wondering if he should make Eggs Benedict, better yet, why he should make Eggs Benedict when a sweet, familiar smell cuts through his thoughts. He peeks his head out and there's a face he hasn't seen in sometime, even longer before everything happened with Richard.

"Hey, Luke," Rory says, sliding onto a stool. She clasps her hands together on the counter and hunches over, her bangs swept back and her hair in a messy ponytail. She looks expectantly at him, her blue eyes so like her mother's but at the same time, so very Rory.

"Hey, Rory," he says, a little taken aback.

"Uh, Caesar, switch," he says, coming out from the back, grabbing a towel and wiping his hands. Caesar goes back happily, obviously grateful to getaway from Kirk, who is arguing the complexities of wheat and rye toast.

He grabs a mug and sets it in front of her, turning quickly to grab the coffee pot and pours. She lifts the mug and breathes it in, even closing her eyes.

"I missed this brown stuff," she says after a moment of inhaling and takes a long drink.

"You mean you've been on a coffee hiatus?" he asks, incredulous.

She looks at him as if crazy and smiles. "If I was on a coffee hiatus, I would look like Courtney Love, wet."

He grins and shoves his hands in his back pockets, watching as the smile slips from her face and she drops her head to look into her coffee. It's when she looks like this that he sees little Rory, all eyes and brown hair, so grown-up but still a little girl in so many ways.

She lifts her head and opens her mouth to say something, but an influx of orders comes and customers signal for coffee refills.

"I'll be right back," he says, already walking away from her, his mind sliding away from what she can possibly say to the plates in his hands and the mugs that need refilling. Fifteen minutes later there's a break and he goes back behind the counter.

"Need some more?" he asks, reaching for her cup, but she covers it with her hand and shakes her head.

"No, no. I didn't come here to drink coffee and if I take another cup I'll lose my nerve and just sit here and we'll chat and then it'll get uncomfortable and I'll leave hastily and that's not what I came here to do," she says, her voice coming out in a steady rush.

He moves his hand away and he leans back, taking up his usual posture, grabbing the order pad and a pen and catching up. She looks at him, grateful that he doesn't ask why and grateful that he just let her nervously ramble.

She takes a deep breath and runs a hand over her messy hair. "Mom said she thanked you for being there, at the hospital."

"Yeah, I told her it wasn't necessary. I was there, there was a need, and I filled it. No 'thank you' required." he responds, mildly distracted by Caesar's terrible handwriting.

"Yeah, well, I have to say thank you, so thank you Luke. And I have to apologize."

At this he raises his head and looks at her, concerned. "You don't have to apologize for anything, Rory. And really-"

"No, hear me out Luke, please? This is important for me to say and I've been working up the courage to do it, you know. I even wrote out an essay, a speech, an article, and about four lists," she says, absolutely serious.

Luke nods and sets down the note pad. "Do you want to go back in the store room or go up into the apartment, that way you can, you know, say whatever it is without running the risk of Miss Patty coming in here, eavesdropping?"

She shakes her head solemnly and uncovers her mug. "Luke, after everything happened between you and Mom, it's like I forgot that there _was_ a you and Mom. I forgot that not only did Mom get hurt, she hurt you and I was blind to that fact," she looks down at her hand and he is about to find his voice when she starts again.

"I guess I was hung up on Dad and how what she did could affect our relationship. And then when they got married, I should've been upset that it was so soon after her engagement to you, but I only thought about me, again."

She suddenly looks up at him and those big eyes are swimming and his throat threatens to close.

"When I looked around the hospital and my father wasn't there - I realized something. I've been holding onto this dream that my mother and my father will get together and life will be what I always wanted it to be. And when I saw you, helping my grandma, being there even though you didn't have to be, especially after how callous we've been towards you-it shattered that dream for me and I don't know, the 'fog lifted from my eyes'."

She does a very Gilmore thing and smiles, even when there are tears running down her face and he can tell by her expression that he must look stricken, even though he's been trying to maintain a neutral posture. He grabs the first thing at hand-his towel-and gives it to her and she picks it up and uses it to dry her cheeks. While she does that, he gets a plate, cuts an extra large piece rhubarb pie, and places it down in front of her, refilling her mug at the same time.

Rory lays a hand on his arm and he looks at her, afraid he might see more tears or, God forbid, snot, and feel even worse than he does now. Her nose is a little red and there are still tears in her eyelashes, but the crying seems to have stopped and she has a little grin on her face.

"I wanted to tell you that when I sit down and I think of what a father does-I think of you. And I haven't treated you like I think that way, and I didn't have the brass to feel that way. I used to, but I got soft, I guess."

She removes her hand and gives him back the towel. He takes it and stares at her, unable to think of what to say. All the words sit heavy on his chest and he looks at the young woman before him, the little girl that captured his heart from day one and he thinks of April and what he would say if it were her sitting here, telling him these things and putting on a brave face.

"That's a pretty big slice of sugar coupled with my liquid death, Luke. Are you trying to do me in once and for all?" she asks with a Rory smile and picks up her fork.

"When family's in distress, I find sugar and liquid death always seems to lessen the pain," he responds, stripping the usual humor from his voice.

She looks up, surprised and he figures this is a good a time as any to say something.

"Rory," he begins, "if it makes you feel any better, I'll take your apology, but I don't need it. Lorelai's your mom and Chris is your dad and you shouldn't be sorry for wanting what they have now. No matter what happened between your mother and me you never lessened in importance to me. You're my, well, you're family Rory. And I love my family."

She seems to be on the verge of tears once again and her giver her back the towel.

"Please don't cry. Here," he pushes the plate closer to her, "eat some pie. It'll make you feel better."

She laughs a little and uses the towel to wipe her face. He takes it from her once again and she takes a deep breath, picks up her fork, and begins to eat her rhubarb pie. He watches on, relieved. When she'd done with the pie, she finishes off the rest of the coffee and gets up to leave, reaching for her purse. He waves his hand and shakes his head, obviously displeased with the act.

"You were crying. I gave you crying pie and crying coffee. Those are on the house."

She grins and leans over the counter and gives him a hug and he is so astonished that all he can do is pat her back and ponytail.

Without speaking, she gives him another squeeze, let go, flashes him a grin, and leaves.

He spends the rest of the day trying to adjust to the slight pressure on his heart. He thinks of Rory and how acute her sadness is. Anger bubbles up and he curses Christopher. What a bastard. Lorelai gives him chance after chance and what does he do? Fuck it up. He shakes his head, ridding himself of this particular line of thought. Before he knows it, he might be in the throes of a dark day and he can't afford to regress back to that. Lorelai made her choice, she's with Chris, even when her daughter is crying about how lousy a dad he is. He's accepted that she's made her choice, but why does he feel unsettled and torn?

As soon as he hears those four o'clock jingle of bells and April comes in, talking a mile a minute about things he always makes a point to look up and drops her added twenty pounds on a nearby table where she takes up residence-he feels the slight pressure ease and is comfortable again.


	3. Wet Firewood and Matches

April was adamantly opposed to the idea of waking up early in the morning to jog. She told him it interfered with the eight hours of sleep she needed to feel rejuvenated. He asked her if she couldn't even manage an early Sunday jog and she said she'd think about it.

That was a week ago and it is 3:15 on a frightfully cold Sunday morning. He changes into his jogging outfit, adding on an extra long sleeved shirt, socks, and keeps on his pajama bottoms. He is about to leave when April calls out to him to wait.

He looks back at his sleepy eyed daughter wrapped in a thick quilt holding out something fluffy towards him.

"What's that?" he asks, a little wary of the fluffiness.

"It's a earflap hat. I saw it the other day and since you like to jog in obscenely cold weather, I bought it for you. Well, Mom bought it for you but she bought it for me so I could give it to you so technically, I guess, Mom bought it for you although I was there for each step of the buying of the earflap hat process."

She lets out a small yawn and shakes the hat a little. "Hurry, take it. I think I'm starting to fall asleep on my feet."

He takes the hat and turns it over in his hands, feeling the soft inner lining and picks at the faux fur outer lining that elicits a slight grimace.

"April, I have a hat," he mutters.

"Yes, but your head needs insulation. Most body heat escapes from your head and that beanie you have probably only traps 17 of that heat. And ears are sensitive. Most people forget that ears need warmth too."

"But the beanie works fine. And my ears are very warm and I think they'll hold their own against the cold."

April puts on her glasses and stands there, staring at him with the lecture look. The lecture look is the only warning he gets before she starts in on a rant/lecture that proves she is his daughter. In fact, she's the next generation. One time, she gave him a rant about the politics of school superlatives for thirty minutes while intermittingly arguing the differences between rock salt and table salt on fries.

"Okay, okay," he grumbles and he tugs on the earflap hat. April starts to giggle and he can just imagine how dumb he looks.

"You look cool Dad, really cool," she says, nodding with a proud, but amused smile and he feels a rush of love for her, for telling him he looks cool even though he probably looks like an overgrown llama.

"Yeah, well, just remember I wear this because I love you," he says before opening the door.

"Go back to sleep. I'll make you whatever you want to eat once the sun has risen to its usual place, okay?"

April nods and goes back to her bed, taking off her glasses and setting it by the glass of water on her nightstand. He watches as she snuggles deeper into the quilt and a few seconds later there's the soft sound of her breath indicating she's asleep.

He smiles and closes the door, heading down the steps and out the back of the diner, pausing for a few seconds to consider whether he should leave the earflap hat and take the beanie, but then he considers the possibility that April might have some way of knowing if he used the earflap hat, maybe taking some hair samples or smelling it-he gives the beanie a mournful glance and heads out into the cold.

He doesn't notice that he's near her house until he trips over one of Babette's gnomes. He stops, jogging in place, and picks it up. The top of the little red hat has broken off, as well as a foot, and the smiling face is smudged with dirt and looks rather worse for wear. He searches around for the top and finds it in her yard, sticking up on a little hill of snow. He looks up at her house and it seems darker than normal, closed in and closed off. The tricycle is no longer on the porch and there are boxes piled beside the door. His heart starts to hammer as he thinks of what piled boxes mean.

She's moving. _Chris might still be moving things in. _No, he would've moved everything in by now. She's going to Boston. _Maybe she's doing some winter cleaning or Rory's taking some of her things up to New Haven. _She doesn't clean; she's a pack rat. And Rory, well, maybe. That's a possibility. But she's moving. The house is already darkening.

His thoughts become too disheartening and he shakes his head, inhaling a deep whiff of frigid air and his chest burns. He focuses on the gnome smiling up at him and he suddenly remembers its name. Pierpont.

"Shit," he mumbles and prays silently that he has some cement glue in the supply closet because if this gnome isn't smiling up at Babette before nine, he's dead.

"Okay, Pierpont," he whispers, turning around and gazing at the two yards, "let's try to make you presentable. But first, let's try to find your foot. " He hunches over and picks through the snow, eyes sweeping the ground.

He is so intent on finding Pierpont's missing appendage that he doesn't hear her door open and shut, nor does he hear the crunching of her boots on the snow. He nearly yelps when a hand comes to rest on his shoulder and he whirls around, putting Pierpont behind his back and holding up a hand. He sees her amused expression hidden behind a thick scarf and her blue eyes travel the length of him, resting on his earflap hat.

"I like this look," she says, her voice muffled by the scarf and he's grateful that it's dark out and she can't see the red he knows stains his cheeks.

"Oh, uh, April got it for me. She said it'd trap my head heat and warm my ears. She's the scientist, so…" he ends with a shrug.

She nods and looks behind him, curious. "Is that Pierpont I see?"

He remembers and brings him out, bringing the gnome to rest in the crook of his arm.

"Yeah. I tripped over him, but he seems to be pretty mangled. Top of his hat's broken and he's missing a foot."

She pats a coat pocket and slips her hand in, bringing out the foot. "Here," she says, handing it to him, "I found it last night and went looking for Pierpont myself, but I suspect two wannabe orphans got a hold of him."

He breathes a sigh of relief. "Good, thank God. I thought Babette would have my head."

He glances over at her house, "Is she home?"

She shakes her head. "No, she and Morey went to Manhattan for a little jazz. I'm supposed to be taking care of her gnomes."

He nods. 'Okay. Well, uh, I'll try my best to patch him up and I'll hold him until Babette comes back, that way he won't risk getting roughed up again."

"No, no, that's okay. I mean, he's not your responsibility. I can fix him."

He raises an eyebrow. "You have rubber cement?"

She frowns, squinting an eye. "You mean the stuff celebrities stick their hands in?"

He nods and she sighs, shrugging. "I guess Pierpont will be going home with you then."

"Yeah," he looks at her, really looks at her, and he can see that she's barely holding it together and her eyes are puffy and her nose is red, and not from the cold. She is clutching her elbows and standing as though she might dissolve if her arms aren't wrapped together, holding herself in.

Something in him shifts then and he knows that he won't be able to not ask, to pretend that he's angry enough not to care. He cares too much not to ask.

"What's going on Lorelai? You're never up this early unless it's a sale or I don't know, there's a coffee fountain opening up and you want to be the first to try it."

She shuffles her feet and looks away from him, wisps of cold escaping from her mouth as she inhales and exhales. He waits, knowing that either she's contemplating telling him the truth or making up some excuse. When she turns her eyes back on him, he is not expecting how pained they are. Her face is open and he is suddenly thrust back to that night, when she came to him, angry, upset, hurt, desperate, and gave him a choice, a choice he couldn't make.

"Chris and I…" her voice is wobbly, "Chris and I are getting a divorce."

A fresh burst of anger runs through his veins and he has to rein in the strong impulse to turn away or yell. She and Chris got a divorce and she's upset. Jesus. He can't do this. He can't do this again.

He searches her face, wondering if she knows anything about him, if she realizes that it's Luke standing in front of her, not Sookie or Rory, but Luke.

She doesn't go on and he wonders if this is when he's supposed to give his condolences on the collapse of her romance with Chris. Well, he better respond.

"I'm sorry Lorelai, but what exactly do you want me to say?" he asks softly and she looks at him, startled.

"What?"

"What do you want me to say here Lorelai? That I'm sorry you and Chris didn't work out? God, I can't believe I'm doing this! I can't believe I'm out here, considering to stay here, in the cold, holding a gnome, wearing a hat that belongs to some guy in Alaska and listen to you mourn the loss of your marriage!"

He walks pass her and she grabs his arm, yanking him around. "Don't walk away, don't go stewing over the words you wished to have said. Say them to me, tell me what you are thinking, tell me what you want to say," she says in a voice he's never heard before, in a voice that it is brimming with anger and suppressed emotions.

He moves his arm out of her grasp and sets Pierpont down between them. "Fine. I can't do this; I'm not strong enough to do this. I thought I was, but I'm not."

"You're not strong enough to do what, Luke? Listen to me 'mourn the loss of my marriage'?" she asks, probing him.

"Yes! I'm not the same Luke that would pour your coffee and play it safe behind the counter, behind friendship. I know I said that we should stop pretending and you should go back to being Lorelai Gilmore and I should go back to being the guy who poured your coffee, but I was wrong. You were never Lorelai Gilmore. You were the woman I loved, the woman I still love and I can't go back to being the guy who just bites his tongue while you cry over another loser."

He begins to pace now and she follows him with her eyes, her mind replaying him saying that he was wrong, that he still loves her. God, she can die right now from both relief and overwhelming grief.

"And you know what, I shouldn't even care. I shouldn't care what goes on between you and Christopher. You made your choice, you married him, you got your middle, you got everything that you couldn't get from me, so why do I feel so torn? Why do I want to comfort you but I want you to suffer?"

He stops then and looks at her, and he feels all his defenses crumbling down because he thought he was over it, he thought he can move past it, but looking at her face, at that same stricken expression she had on the porch that morning, he finds that the wound is still fresh and pulsing and hasn't scabbed over, even after all this time. He moves closer to her, but does not go beyond the gnome.

He searches her blue gaze for the answer to the one question that has been plaguing him for months but all he sees is shock and despair.

"Why did you do it Lorelai? Did you do it to hurt me, to punish me for saying 'not right now', for keeping you away from April? Why?" he asks, his voice broken and he stands before, a combination of all the hurt he's endured from her since they've known each other, his face drawn and tired. It is looking at this face that she realizes the full extent of what she did to Luke; how acutely she's hurt the only man she's ever truly loved. It makes her throat burn and the acid in her stomach licks its lining.

"Luke," her voice breaks and salt enters her mouth. She is shaking, trying to hold in the sobs that threaten to undo her.

"Luke, you have to know that what happened-I didn't want to hurt you, I didn't want to lose you. I was just, I was confused and I was heartbroken and I wanted so badly to be married to you and I wanted our middle so badly and I was so scared that it wouldn't happen," she says in a rush as tears fall down her cheek and into her scarf.

"I thought that you didn't love me enough to want to marry me and when I went to Chris-I just wanted to be wanted, to feel significant. I wanted to be an Ava Gardner again."

He shakes his head slowly, trying to hear and process all she is saying. Her words are jumbled together and her voice wavers between calm and hysterical, but their meaning punches him in the gut

"So what you're saying is, you didn't believe in us anymore, in me? That you didn't believe that I loved you, that I wanted to share the rest of my waking life with you? You didn't believe me?" he asks, a little anger lining each question.

She brushes the tears from her cheeks quickly. "I didn't. I was upset with the whole cartoon character reference and then you kept me from forming a relationship with my future stepdaughter. April is a part of you and you kept me from knowing her. And then June 3rd got postponed because you needed more time and-"

"And you said nothing! You said nothing to me Lorelai! I didn't know anything until you shoved it in my face and forced me to choose between getting to know _my _daughter and marrying you!" he exclaims.

"I didn't want it to come out that way, I didn't mean for that to happen. I knew you didn't like being shoved, but I shoved you, but I didn't want to lose you Luke, don't you understand?" she pleads, moving towards him, but he moves back, shaking his head.

"No. Lose me? Lorelai, come on. You had me. I was there, I wasn't going anywhere. You were right to shove me, to push me, I'll admit that. But when you slept with Christopher-didn't you think that by doing _that_ you would lose me? When did you become afraid so tell me how you feel?"

She puts a hand to her forehead, trying to calm herself. She wasn't prepared to do this this morning and she doesn't know if she can make it through. The devastation and frustration in his voice every time he responds tears at her, forcing to acknowledge more of her mistakes. She thought she had recognized them all in the last month of quiet reflection, but it is painfully obvious that she has glossed over quite a few.

"When I slept with Christopher, I was hurting. I thought I already lost you. And when you came that morning with the truck packed and you told me…that your life wasn't real without me in it, I became numb because there you were and I just did the one thing that could destroy us and so I told you. I had to tell you because I had been lying to myself and to you for so long that I couldn't do it anymore."

He stares at her, his body losing all of its warmth as she speaks. What did he do to her that made her so insecure? What had he done?

"And I turned in on myself when you did, I hid my feelings when you started distancing the new part of your life from me, from us. I messed everything up Luke, I just…messed everything up."

His chest gets tight and his head aches. Everything is beating, his eyes, his tongue, everything. He wants to stop, to turn around and walk slowly back to the diner, sit in a chair and not move. She must have seen his resignation because she walks around Pierpont and is in front of him.

"I married Christopher to get over this feeling that I had failed. I married him because I thought that you were right, that my mother was right, that our history was right. I kept on saying that we were twenty-years in the making, I kept on thinking that this is what I really wanted, that me and Chris are alike and we have this amazing daughter and we owe it to ourselves to do this, but I was wrong, Luke. I was 'the Earth is the center of the universe' wrong."

He looks away from her and steps back, but she comes forward and moves in the direction he moved his head, forcing him to look at her.

"Don't you want to know how I was wrong? Why I was wrong?" she asks.

"No, I don't. I don't want to know anything anymore. And then I look at you and I want to know everything. So I don't know, but you're going to tell me anyway, so what's the point?" he rambles and she hides her smile, her sudden hope that maybe she's breaking through to him.

"I was wrong because you were wrong. I was wrong because I lost track of who I was before I loved you. I was wrong because my mother never knew what was best for me. I was wrong because Rory doesn't need her parents married at her age. I was wrong because I still love you, I will always like my hair down, and Chris paid for Yale. Do you get where I'm going with this?"

He doesn't say anything and his expression is unreadable. She resists the urge to clutch his arm for fear she might scare him away or that she might never let go.

"Christopher and I don't belong together. Not just because he's not nor will he ever be you, but because I don't want him and all he stands for. He stands for petty little fights and moping and bitching and moaning. He's the poster boy for 'cut and run'. He's impatient and pushy and immature-he's me, Luke, but without the sweet disposition and the strong sense of filial loyalty. And one might say, 'Hey, you found your match, the Sid to your Nancy, the Bran to your Gelina," that's bullshit. All of it is bullshit. I want to grow in a relationship; I want to be better than I was before I came into it. With Chris, I was regressing, I was buying into all the shit my mother kept spewing for years. With Chris, I became spineless."

She pauses to catch her breath and he can see the color coming back to her face. He is partially mesmerized by her hand movements, by the way her eyes have suddenly sprung to life and he wishes he can become alive like she has, find comfort in the fact that she has found a reason.

"And the other part of this is you and me. I love you so much and I couldn't face the pain of knowing that I hurt you worse than you hurt me. I should have faced that pain Luke. I should have faced it then so that now, when I see you like this, my stomach doesn't need to crawl into my throat and I can be strong and not feel the incredible impulse to collapse right here and not get up until the Banyan Boys mistake me for a snow mound and try to piss their initials on me."

She is finished and he is looking at her as if he's trying to discern her shape through a fog. He seems so remote and closed that she fears he hasn't heard her and maybe he stopped listening from the moment she mentioned Christopher's name. She tentatively reaches out a hand and touches his arm and he moves forward, so close she can feel his warmth through her clothes and she takes the opportunity to wrap her arms around him and bury her face by his neck, smelling his skin, his clothes, breathing in the fresh laundry scent and oat soap she bought for him when they were still together because his soap had no food smell and oat was as healthy as soap came.

Without any thought his arms come up and surround her and he holds her, squeezing her to him, breathing in her vanilla scent and his heart aches because he has missed this so much, holding her, running a hand over her knit cap.

What am I doing? _You're giving in. It's okay to give in. _But I can't do this again. I can't afford to hurt her again, but I can't get hurt again. I can't be that guy again, but I want to be that guy, I want to be more, I want to trust her again, I want and I don't want and thinking is too hard and too tiring. _Then do what feels right. Go with the gut thing. _But that's gone now. Things are different.

He gently sets her away from him and she is crying and he is close to it too, but he clears his throat and his vision clears.

"We've been outside for quite a while. You should go, Paul Anka might be worried." He runs a hand down from her shoulder to her fingertips, then reaches out to wipe the tears from her face, but more keep coming.

"Luke," she cries and he steps back from her, needing distance to say what he has to say.

"I don't know anymore Lorelai. All I know is I made you doubt how completely I love you and I had a chance to make June 3rd happen. I don't know what to do now, now that everything is out and staring us in the face. But who are we now Lorelai? Have we changed? Or are we the same people who'll hurt each other? And I can't go back to being the same person, stuck in the same routine."

He bends down to pick up Pierpont and the pieces that need gluing, slipping them into his pajama pants pocket. He turns to leave but his name fills the air and he stops, not going to turn around, because if he does, he'll be that same person.

"I should have told you that you were never just the guy who pours my coffee. You are more; you will always be more, okay? Please, before you walk away, believe that, believe me."

He stands there, feeling the weight of her words sink into him, pushing down and out the chill that he hadn't known had always been there. He nods once, and walks away, Pierpont in hand, smiling up at him.


	4. Walking After You

**Disclaimer: **All characters and places belong to ASP, DR, and the CW.

**A/N: **Thank you so very much for the reviews. I'm glad that you guys like the story so far and I hope you enjoy this installment. This chapter is based on the song 'Walking After You' by the Foo Fighters.

She stands out in the cold, watching his slowly retreating figure until he is out of sight and she can't help but think that this is karmic retribution for that horrible night when she walked away and he watched her back until she was gone. But he's not going to go to Anna, like she went to Chris when her heart was breaking. He's going back to his apartment, where he'll sit and think, then take a shower, think some more, remember Pierpont and fix him up, then open the diner and get on with the day.

She goes back into her silent house, climbing the steps to her bedroom, but she stops before entering, looking around. What was she doing? Why did she move Chris into their house, into their bed? She enters and falls onto the bed, not bothering to strip off the extra five pounds of clothing. She breathes deeply, staring up at the ceiling. She used to wake up in the middle of the night during the rare nights Luke would be absent from her side and think of what successive nights without Luke would be like. Her skin would start to itch and an unbearable feeling of loneliness would crawl over her and she would turn over and squeeze her eyes shut, curling her body inwards and pressing her face into his pillow, catching a bit of his scent.

She does the same thing now, and the loneliness is much sharper and more pronounced and his pillow isn't his pillow. It's Bed, Bath, and Beyond's pillow. She tries to sleep, but behind her eyes is his face framed by that fluffy earflap hat that on any normal day would induce fits of maniacal laughter, but now it only makes her stomach clench with regret because she wasn't there to see the look on his face when April gave it to him or hear his grumbling or laugh at him and make him give her an exasperated look. She thinks of the things that she misses instead, causing her to grin.

Chocolate Chip Banana pancakes with extra chips, chocolate and syrup drizzled heavily on top, with half a can of Ready Whip and maybe some sprinkles and marshmallows as the piece de resistance. Luke's face when he delivers it to her. Coffee. Waking up in the morning to smell something cooking in her kitchen. Watching him wrestle a toaster or her oven or Paul Anka from under their bed because the broom fell downstairs. Flannel. Mentioning Star Wars and/or Star Trek in his presence. The rants. Town meetings. Seeing Rory and Luke together. Backwards blue baseball cap. Feeling the weight of his body against hers or the way his lips would find hers in the dark. Ice rinks, spazzy dancing, Sniffy's, the horoscope, his smile, her daughter's voice on a Wednesday afternoon, grumbling, movie night every night, the green monstrosity, Bert, everything.

When she wakes the next morning, Paul Anka's sad face under her arm, she feels the funk she's been in lifting and her mind starts to clear. _The same routine._ She would avoid Luke's and go to Weston's, avoid town meetings, avoid Doose's, throw herself into the inn and put on a smile and pretend everything's okay, even with Rory. That's the same routine. That's what she needs to stop doing. She's some years away from being the new twenty and she's going to play the avoidance game? She shakes her head and struggles up, waking Paul Anka in the process and he gives her a mournful glance.

"No, Paul Anka, no more staying in and watching _Some Kind of Wonderful._ No more Neapolitan Dynamite or Phish Food. We are getting up, getting dressed and going out for real food made with real eggs and from a real pig. We are getting the finest coffee known to mankind and we are going to sit there and enjoy it, even if it kills us."

Paul Anka watches as she strips off her outer clothing, throwing each item every which way and when a sock falls his way, he scampers off the bed and out the room, unable to handle cotton white things with sun and moon stitching being thrown at him.

She rifles through her closet, searching for something that can match how she feels inside: on a mission.

She settles on a high-waist pinstripe black pencil skirt with brass button clasps and a cream-colored lace long-sleeved blouse with a fitted inner cream silk tank. Power clothes need power shoes. She stands in front of her miniature shoe store and after fifteen minutes of careful perusal, she chooses simple glossed leather black pumps.

She steps back and nods. _Yes, this is the suit and today is the day._

He has put the early morning confrontation in the back of his mind for the Sunday breakfast fest. He doesn't understand where these people come from. Do they pop out of the ground like those slimy black things in that movie...what was it? Kings of the Rings? No, no, that sounds too Dr. Seuss-ish.

"April," he calls out, sticking is head out from the grill, "what was the name of that movie you made me endure Wednesday night?"

She turns from working the cash register, a grin erasing the little frown creasing her brow.

"You mean 'The Lord of the Rings'?"

He nods, pointing the spatula at her, "Yeah, that one. And those things that came out of the earth and were slimy with pointy teeth and dark green blood-"

"Orcs, Dad, Orcs," she rings up a customer and then turns back to him, "what's this about?"

He motions her to come forward and they lean towards each other conspiratorially. "I was thinking, these people must have popped out of the ground, itching to feast on something other than man-flesh, get stuffed and disappear back into some kind of sub cavernous dwelling."

She shakes her head and smiles. "You have an overactive imagination. Where do you get it from?"

He shrugs. "Maybe I get it from you."

"You can't get it from me! I'm your daughter. You have to _pass_ your overactive imagination on to me."

"You have a lot of influence over me, you know. I now make Eggs Benedict and eat pizza and wear Alaskan hat wear."

She smiles and goes back to the cash register. "You do those things because you want to, just like it was you who wanted to _endure _'The Lord of the Rings'."

He rolls his eyes and turns back to the pancakes he's been making.

It's the heaviest rush of the morning and he and Caesar are in the back, April's on cashier/busgirl duty, and Lane, who actually called _him_ to come in and help, is behind the counter, taking orders and waitressing.

He finishes an order and sends it out to Lane, then reads the next ticket. Chocolate Chip Banana Pancakes with extra chips and butter, sausages and bacon, and a side of hash browns. It's a heart attack on a platter. He hasn't had an order like this in months and he knows automatically that Lorelai is in the diner, either sitting at a table by the windows or at the counter. He starts working on her order, his brain working furiously.

She's here. Why? After this morning I thought..._Well, it's obvious you thought wrong. She's here. _But things are different now. We've changed. _And that's why she's here. She's been running away from her problems and now she's facing them. It's time for you to do the same thing. Face her. Hurt._

The morning rush starts to die down and he takes his time on her order, making it exactly to her specifications. When he's done, he pokes his head out to call for Lane, but he sees her standing with Lorelai, the both of them bending over a doublewide stroller and speaking gibberish. Zach is sitting in a chair, digging through an oversized blue baby diaper bag, muttering. April is kneeling next to the stroller, peering over into it. He watches as she reaches into the stroller and takes a little hand. Something happens because they all laugh and Lorelai looks down at April with a warm smile and puts a hand on her shoulder.

The scene brings a bittersweet taste to his mouth and he can't help but feel overwhelmed by the many conflicting emotions churning through him. It's a picture he wants to be in, but he wants to take it. He wants to go up to Lorelai and place a kiss on her temple, slip an arm around her waist, and join them in babbling. He sees again, this time much clearer, how things could have been between April and Lorelai.

He sets the plate down, takes a stilling breath, and heads towards them. Lorelai sees him first and she straightens, her blue eyes light and warm on him. She is beautifully dressed for business and reminds him of one of those classic actresses, poised and graceful.

"Hey Luke," she says in a light voice, "did you come over to 'ga-ga, goo-goo' with us?"

April stands up and turns to him, a little anxious. Zach stops his muttering and looks to Lane, who looks to Lorelai, then Luke, then back at Zach.

"No, um, I'm not much for baby talk," he shrugs and everyone looks at him, nervous. He scratches the back of his neck, wondering what he should do next to dispel the sudden heavy silence.

"You know," he starts, "I read somewhere that all that gibberish isn't good for their developing minds. It allows their infancy-"

"Whoa, man. What are you talking about? Weren't you making all these weird noises to the twins the other day?" Zach interrupts, a puzzled expression crossing his features.

He glares at him and April bites her lip, holding back a laugh. Lane hits Zach's arm and Lorelai lets out a real chuckle.

The tension lessens and he is glad his statement contributed to that.

"Luke, I'm going to take off, my mother has the afternoon planned for us and I need at least two hours to prepare my mind," Lane says, shrugging on her jacket.

"Okay. Thanks for coming in Lane. Zack," he extends a hand and the younger man gets up hastily to shake it, "good seeing you."

"Yeah, you too Luke," he says and shoulders the diaper bag nervously.

He bends down and gives each little hand a gentle shake. He really can't discern two little baby girls from the swaths of pastel baby clothes Lane undoubtedly clothed them in. Two pairs of big, bright dark eyes blink a couple of times at him and he chuckles.

"Goodbye girls. Be good."

He stands and they finish with the goodbyes. When the little family is out and walking briskly down the street, he turns to Lorelai.

"I've got your breakfast at the counter. Where are you sitting? I'll bring it to you."

He is glad his voice sounds normal because inside, he's spread thin just being within ten feet of her.

She grins and reaches down onto a chair to grab her purse and coat. "I'm sitting at the counter," and she walks around him, a whiff of vanilla clouding his sense of smell.

April touches his arm and he smiles down at her, knowing that she's concerned. Although he hasn't gone into the details about the break up, she is very perceptive and understands that he was hurting, that he is still hurting and it's mainly because of Lorelai.

"Didn't Miss Patty invite you to critique the upcoming production of Cabaret?" he asks, changing the subject.

She sighs a sigh very similar to his and nods. "Yeah, I guess I better be going. Don't wanna miss the opening number featuring Kirk."

He squeezes her shoulder apologetically and she goes upstairs to get her coat and something to distract her from the agony of the next four hours.

He watches her disappear up the steps and turns his attention to Lorelai, who is making her way steadily through her heart attack platter and loving every minute of it. He picks up dishes and tips as he makes his way back behind the counter. Silently he dumps the dishes in the back and deposits the tips in the metal sill next to the cash register. The coffee maker starts beeping and he hurries over to it, grabbing a mug, filling it to the brim and sets it down in front of her.

"I didn't ask for coffee," she says and he looks at her, an eyebrow raised.

"So you don't want it?"

"Just because I didn't ask, doesn't mean I don't want," she grins and takes a tentative sip.

"Mmmm, better than I remembered. Are you using new beans?"

He hides a grin. "No, everything is the same."

She sets down the mug and looks him straight in the eye, her face solemn.

"Is it?"

The seriousness of her tone throws him back to that morning on her lawn and he picks up a rag, wiping down the counter.

Her question is a loaded one, one meant to be rhetorical, he knows, but he feels the urge to answer, but with what? He rings up another customer and wipes down recently vacated tables.

He returns to standing in front of her and she looks up at him, the mug to her lips.

"I don't want it to be the same," he says and her eyes widen in astonishment. She puts down the mug and is about to say something when April trudges down the steps and comes to the counter, lifting the danish cover and placing two cheese danishes in a paper bag.

"All right Dad, I'm out. Lorelai," she turns to her and gives her a small smile, "it was a nice seeing you again. You should come by more often."

Lorelai nods and gives her a touched smile. "I definitely will take you up on that."

April shoots him a quick glance that he doesn't dare interpret and she's gone, the bell tinkling as she goes.

They watch her and Lorelai turns back to him, a sad smile on her face. "Do you know that today marks four times I exchanged more than two sentences with your daughter where she knows who I am and I know who she is?"

He doesn't say anything, only nods his head.

She picks up her fork to eat the rest of her hash browns, but she puts it down and pushes aside the plate, doing the same thing with the coffee mug. Her hands are flat on the counter and she takes a moment to stare at them before turning her eyes on him.

"You said that you couldn't do the same routine anymore and neither can I. I miss you. I am tired of pretending that I'm fine because I'm not. I miss you and I feel as though my heart is breaking every time I see you and normally, the solution to this dilemma would be to not see you, but the ache is worse and the reason for that is the same routine."

His cheek muscle starts to jump and he comes forward, staring at her with wary eyes. She takes a steadying breath and continues.

"I'm not going to avoid the diner and town meetings anymore. I'm going to come in for coffee, breakfast, and the occasional 'burger with fries, coffee and a dessert' combo. If I see April when I'm here, I'm going to make conversation, same thing at town meetings and festivals. I will talk to you too, so you don't feel left out," she smiles cheekily and gets serious again, "We have things we have to work out, but I'm not walking away from these things anymore and when it gets hard and you want to walk away, just know that I'll walk after you Luke. And when it gets hard for me and I want to walk away, which is like me wanting to walk away from Swiss chocolate coffee, I'm hoping that you don't let me."

Her eyes are bright blue orbs of utter sincerity and her voice is strong with emotion. His gut tightens as he searches her face for any uncertainty and finds none. She is being completely honest.

She takes a fortifying last drink from her mug, reaches for her purse and brings out some bills, placing them beside the plate. She shrugs on her coat and slings her bag over her shoulder. He watches her as she goes through these steps of leaving and he feels his heart expand and deflate with every breath, as though his lungs and his heart have switched places.

Before she leaves, she looks at him, a little worry darkening the blue, and asks, "I'm willing to do this, but...are you? Can you trust me enough to know that I'm not going to back out of this or-"

"Lorelai," he cuts in, letting some of the emotion bubbling inside enter his voice, "I believe you."

He gives her a reassuring grin and she gives him a relieved smile.

"You'll be late for work," he says, clearing his throat and she gives him one last smile before leaving.

Do I really believe her, he thinks as he switches places with Caesar.

_You might and that is what makes you cautious._

The day passes quickly and it's a quarter to ten when the bells twinkle, signaling a new arrival. He stands up from behind the counter, a stack of paper bags in his hand, ready to say he's about to close but he swallows the words when he sees it's her.

"Hey," he greets her, motioning for her to take a seat at the counter and she does, wearily taking off her coat and draping it over a stool next to her. She sinks onto the seat and leans her head into her hand.

"The inn was busy?" he asks, wondering why she isn't speaking. She looks tired and at some point during the day she must've taken out her contacts because a posh set of black frames rests on the bridge of her nose.

"Very. Sookie had a conniption fit because our food supplier supplied imitation almond extract instead of pure almond extract and she made me taste four different types of almond cake to discern if there even was a difference between imitation almond extract and pure almond extract. Now I hate any kind of almond anything. And then Michel, well, Michel was being Michel except he was depressed because one of his dog children, I think it was PawPaw, was at the hospital for overdose kibble intake and snapped at the florist, who was also depressed, and had a mini-breakdown in the lobby. While I tried to assure her that there are many people who love her and that Michel was not representative of her mother, a group of tourists from Iceland who collectively only know how to say, 'How much is a cappuccino' in English checked in and had all these requests that literally would have driven me insane if Michel didn't happen to be willing to put up with them. There's more, but I think my mind has suppressed the 'more' to protect me."

He sets a large cup of hazelnut-flavored coffee he made while she rambled and she takes a long drought.

"I taste a relative to the almond family," she says with a grin.

He leans against the counter, grinning. "I ran out of almond-flavored. Sorry."

She laughs and her hands cover the cup. He is just marveling at how easy it is for them to fall back into that easiness when he notices her ring less finger and he straightens, clearing his throat.

"So how's the divorce going?" he casually asks, going to the back and getting a broom.

He doesn't need to see her face to know that she is surprised by his question-her silence before answering indicates that she's uneasy about the subject.

"It's going, I guess. No _War of the Roses_ battle for the chandelier since we didn't share many assets, so it's speeding the process along," she replies anxiously.

He comes out to the front and begins sweeping behind the counter, expelling some nervous energy.

"That's good," he says in response and he can feel her eyes on his cheek like a cat in front of a fish tank. Maybe it wasn't the best subject to bring up, but he saw her ring finger bare and couldn't help but to go back to the hospital when he found out. He saw the way she tried to hide it and it made him wonder if she was ashamed. In the back of his mind, he hoped she was.

"I have to say, I never thought it would be you to broach the subject of my divorce," she finally says and he hears the tick of the clock and her coffee mug being raised to her lips and then set firmly on the counter.

"Yeah, well, I went through a divorce too. I know how it can be, especially if you tried to make it work."

He can hear her take a quick intake of air and he glances at her. Her head is turned away from him towards a window. He can tell that she's thinking of what to say, by the way she rubs her fingers over her knuckles. Her lips are pursed and this conversation might get heavy.

"I don't think I tried to make it work," she says, looking back at him and he shakes his head, feeling that tired anger coming back. With one long stroke he finishes with behind the counter and sweeps the pile to the corner by the staircase. He starts at the far wall, the motion of going back and forth, getting all the forgotten pieces of food and paper, all the crumbs of the day gives him the much need calm to not explode.

"I think you tried to make it work. You did parade him through town, let him buy out the knit-a-thon, and you moved him into your house, took in his kid. I think you were trying very hard."

She can hear the effort in his voice to rein his anger in and she quietly deliberates whether to drop the subject so they don't end up fighting or get it done with. She thinks of their history, their problem with communication, his problem of walking away or standing still and her problem of changing the subject and staying mum on an issue. She can't go back to doing that, to letting that happen. There is no bliss in ignorance, not when it comes to love.

"I was trying very hard to forget you."

He lifts some chairs onto a table, his flannel stretched taunt against his shoulders and she can see that he is tense and she wants to go to him and soothe him and assure him, but how can she when it's because of her he is tense?

She looks at the clock. 10:00 pm. She slips off the leather pumps and pads over to the door, flipping the sign to close and locking the door. He watches her quick movements and her bare feet, in a place of food, and can't help to feel the tell/tale burning down his spine which branches out to other parts of his body he rather not have the burning branch out to.

He picks up the broom and begins to sweep again, his mouth in a stern line.

"So you're not going to say anything, you're going to sweep and say nothing?" she asks and her voice is close and he can see her feet off to one side, the toes painted red.

"Yes. I have to sweep. I have to clean. It's a part of my job. And saying nothing sometimes comes from having to sweep and having to clean," he says gruffly.

"So you're going to sweep and sulk, is that it? You want to say something, but you don't want to say it, why, because it might hurt my feelings? Well, my feelings are already hurt and personally, I'm tired of this 'silently pissed' Luke."

He turns to her, eyes blazing. "Six months Lorelai. Six months and you were trying to forget me? Did you succeed in any way? I'd really like to know because I couldn't stop thinking about you. From the time you walked away to the time you came back tonight, I haven't stopped thinking of you."

He drops the broom and goes to the counter, grabbing the rag and coming back, going to a table and wiping it down. She stands silently, knowing that this is just the beginning.

When he straightens he starts again, his blue eyes crackling.

"I should have tried to forget you like you did me. I packed away the hat you bought for me, my thought being it was too hard to having something on me that would take me back every single time I placed it on my head. So does that count as trying? Does it Lorelai?"

She doesn't know whether to nod or shake her head so she does neither and he puts up a couple of chairs, this time talking as he does so.

"I mean, I think I have a better reason to have tried very hard to forget you. You ran to Christopher after we had an_ argument _and slept with him, then you married him and moved him into the house that I had renovated for _us._"

"We broke up," she gets in while he takes a breath and he scoffs, resting a hand on a chair, ready to hoist it onto the table.

"'We broke up'? I didn't know that 'I have to go' is code for 'This isn't working anymore, we're done, finished, caput.'"

"You didn't walk after me, Luke. What was I supposed to think?"

"Oh, so my not walking after you falls under the 'now or never' umbrella, nevermind the fact that I showed up the next morning and the morning after that, looking like a stupid piece of shit pleading with you to give me a chance, that I can be better, I can think faster."

She doesn't know what to say, especially when he is staring at her with that look, that look that says he's just about done and he can't deal with this anymore. That look scares her and she hasn't built the defenses to withstand that look so she goes to a table and straightens the sugar packets. This gives her the opportunity to clear her thoughts and think of a response.

Finally, she straightens her spine and looks at him. "I knew we were finished when I woke up in Boston. I wasn't going to make you more of a fool by lying to you. So I told you. You didn't yell at me or scream or do anything and I wanted that, I wanted that more than your silence. And then you take out your anger and frustration on _Christopher_ when you should have confronted _me_."

He shakes his head because he is getting tired of this conversation.

"I don't know what you want from me, Lorelai. Do you want me to just forgive you, just like that, because you realized you were wrong? Well, I do. You're forgiven, all is well. I am to blame for driving you to Christopher. What I did to you was so terrible that you had to marry some immature asshole and try to make it work to forget about me." He looks away from her and lifts the chair, putting it on the table. He wishes she would leave, but she is still standing there, watching him.

"Luke, do you believe me?"

He stops moving and his mouth goes dry. That's the question he's been asking himself all day, does he believe her.

"Are you going to answer the question or are we going to stand here, pretending this is a silent movie? You're no Charlie Chaplin, Luke."

He sighs. "I told you that I do."

"There's a 'but' in there somewhere. Tell me."

"There are no buts. When you asked me earlier today if I believed you and I said yes, I just said it to reassure you. And now, I believe you. I just don't believe that we can do this again," he turns to her, his eyes sad, his entire demeanor sagging. She feels another 'Maybe we're not right for each other' speech coming on and that aggravates her more than anything.

"If you're going to give me another bullshit speal about how we're not right for each other, then save it; I've heard it before. I'm not interested in maybes, Luke. I'm not right for anyone else. And I told you that I'm not going to let you walk away from this," she lets out a short burst of breath, clearly exasperated.

"Jesus, why does this have to be like pulling sausages out of you?" she exclaims.

"Is it supposed to be easy, Lorelai?" he yells.

"No, but you don't say what you want to say, even when everything's out there. Yes, I made a colossal mistake, I more than fucked up and yes, it took me six months to get to this point, but I'm here, Luke, and I know that I'm asking a lot of you, but this is the only way."

He slips into silence once again and she wants to reach out and shake his arm, his shoulders. His silence is infuriating and she can't tell what he's thinking when he's quiet and his face expressionless. Will he just walk away? Will he sigh and talk? Will he yell and get frustrated and growl?

"Let me ask you something," he says, pulling out a chair at table near the door and settling himself on it.

She takes the chair opposite him and folds her hands on top of the table, focusing on him intently, her heart beating thunderously at his low, soft voice.

"What made you doubt my love for you?"

She is a little thrown by his question and she opens her mouth to ask him why he would even think that, but his face is drawn and his blue eyes are open. They are fixed on her face, waiting patiently for her answer. She takes a minute to think, to really think about his question and can see why he would think it, let alone ask it. _I am to blame for driving you to Christopher._

"It wasn't just one factor, it was...it was a culmination of things. You keeping April from me, the postponement of the wedding, the way you would shut me down whenever I attempted to get close to that new part of your life, your compliance to Anna, the distance that was growing between us, all of that just made me think that maybe what we had wasn't as strong as it used to be."

He rubs the back of his neck and nods, as though someone is telling him a fact that he doesn't like but has to stomach.

"I'm sorry I made you feel that way. Maybe if I-"

On impulse she reaches out and grabs his hand, taking it in both her own. The contact is electrifying and she unconsciously runs her fingers over his, touching the inside of his palm. The intimacy of this, the sudden rekindling of knowing that his hands are always dry and warm, how they feel on her body when she's cold, instantly warming her, brings tears to her eyes and she holds his hand, so glad he hasn't pulled away.

"Unfortunately for us, Guy Pierce took the Time Machine, so we won't be going back to make everything better. I guess we're going to have to deal with this in the now," her voice gets thick and she takes her hands away, but he grabs them and keeps them in his, folding her long, graceful hands within his own, taking pleasure in the fact that they are still how he remembers them and how they look better bare.

"I don't want to give up on this. And you were right when you said that there will be times when we want to walk away from each other and you are right when you said that we have to bring each other back," he looks up at her, at the tears streaming down from behind her glasses and he reaches a hand out to take them off and wipes her face gently, not minding the streaks of mascara that stain her face and will undoubtedly stain his hand.

Her face starts to get hazy and his eyes are heavy with the weight of his tears, but by sheer will power they do not fall.

"We have to be strong for each other because I love you and what I said that morning is still true. What I said on our first date is still true. So we'll fight it out and we'll yell and we won't get complacent and when it's not okay, we won't pretend it's okay. We're going to do this and we're going to get through it, even when you're a pain in my ass," he smiles and she laughs through her tears and they grip each other's hands.

"So is this the 'I'm going to be on your back' deal?" she asks after her laughter dies down.

"Yeah."

"Then I'm on your back."

The next two months are only what he can describe as trying to tunnel through Everest using the tiniest pick ax imaginable.

Some days are good. Really good. They talk softly; they eat together at the diner or, on nights when they are too tired to drive, brave Al's Pancake World.

Sometimes they just sit and watch a movie, commenting on every little thing.

Whenever she's in the diner and April's there, they talk and laugh, occasionally at him. They walk to town meetings together, all three of them, and he pretends not to suffer miniature panic attacks as Lorelai whips out an entire movie concession stand for her and his daughter to snack on. One time, Rory invited them all up to Yale because there was a special happening going on at the library up there and after going through another civilized pissing contest with Anna, the three of them got into his truck and spent the day in New Haven with Rory. It was the first time since he was a kid that he felt he had his own family. That was a great day.

Other days, and there are numerous other days, he thinks that what they're doing is fruitless and tells her so and they get into it, dragging everything up, even things from the past that they thought they were over, but residual feelings still lingered.

One day, he told her he was going fishing, he needed to get away from Stars Hollow for a few hours, and she made a remark about the unfinished boat still in her garage. A few minutes later it turned into a full-blown argument over when he took it out and parked it in front of the diner. It ended when he went to the garage, removed all the boxes she had stacked in there, and began working on it in silence for ten hours.

The worst fights are about Christopher and even though he endeavors to not let the shithead get to him, he always does.

He and Lorelai are in her living room. He's hanging curtains, muttering cuss words under his breath because he cannot believe she made him take a weekday off to hang curtains and rearrange her house. He manages to get them up and steps back to look at his handiwork. The rods are straight and the turquoise fabric with dark red flower print is tied back perfectly. He turns around to survey the rest of the living room.

It's getting back to feeling how it used to feel, cluttered and homey. There are pillows and throws on every corner of the sofa and she bought out two funky lamps to decorate the end tables. Her mantle is littered with pictures and he watches with amusement as she tries to add more, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She lifts a socked foot to scratch the back of her jean-clad calf while one hand is on her hip, scrunching the jersey material.

He marvels at how she seems perfectly balanced and still, even though he knows her mind is working at two hundred miles a minute. He comes up behind her and peers over her shoulder at the silver frame in her hand. In the frame is a picture of her, Rory, and Christopher, happy. Christopher has his hand around Lorelai's waist, pulling her into his side. Her hand is on his chest and she is laughing. Rory has her arm around Christopher's and is laughing too, her head thrown back, while Christopher is just smiling, his face conveying the thought that it's because of him that these two lovely, animated women are laughing.

He scrutinizes the photo, seeing people milling around in the background, most of them older. He recognizes the green grass and brick buildings as Yale. Yale. They were all happy at Yale. She was happy.

He looks away from the photo and to the mantle, instantly spotting pictures of her and Chris in Paris, one of them of her and Christopher at a romantically set table overlooking the Eiffel Tower, the both of them looking lovingly into each other's eyes.

His heart gets heavy and he feels the coming of one of those days except this time he fights it by turning away from the mantle without a word and going to her movie collection, forcing his mind to think of storage other than the floor and a rickety black CD tower.

"I can feel it radiating off of you like the radiation off of Three Mile Island," she says, putting the picture down and turning to look at him, her arms on either side, loose.

He lifts the black baseball cap and runs his fingers through the back of his hair, then fits it on again, looking over to Bert.

"I was thinking that you should get shelves, you know, for the Blockbuster you have going on here on your floor," he says, ignoring her statement.

"You build shelves? Doesn't TJ build shelves?"

"If I built you a chuppah, I can most definitely make you shelves. And I don't think you want TJ in here, carving little love sonnets into the wood and reciting them back to you in Old English when he's done," he states dryly and goes to Bert, lifting the hood and searching for a tape measure.

"Luke, what is it?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing. I was just thinking about the shelves. You're a quirky person, so maybe the shelves can be like those square, modern things that look like cookie cutters for your walls. Or I can make a trap door type thing where you knock twice in a certain area, tap it with the heel of your hand and up comes a floorboard. Lane was telling me about how she remained sane when she was living with her mother. Very insightful stuff."

He knows he's rambling, but he doesn't want to think about Christopher and how they were a family and all the 'what ifs' and 'whys' and all the rest of that shit. With any luck, he can keep this up for another minute or so and she'll drop it.

He finds the tape measure and goes back to the DVD/VHS corner to measure.

"First of all, I'm not going to question how you know about square shelves that look like wall cookie cutters. Secondly, the trap door sounds absolutely fabulous, very Bond-y. Thirdly and all the other numerical points that come after thirdly, stop, turn around and tell me what it is."

He sighs and snaps back the tape, turning to her. He tries to keep his voice and expression moderate.

"The picture of you, Rory, and Christopher at Yale. It just got to me, that's all. The three of you looked happy, like a family."

She looks down at the picture, her face blank.

"But you stopped looking at that picture. You looked at the ones I have of me and Chris in Paris," she looks up at him, catching the flare of discomfort tempered with vexation lighting his eyes.

"Yeah, well, my eyes strayed. I was curious when I saw that picture and I wanted to see more of you happy. With him."

She can hear the unspoken accusation in his voice and she lets out a frustrated sigh.

"Don't worry over the Paris pictures-I'm taking those down. Just for future reference, I don't know if it was happiness, I think it was probably more like feeling slightly more positive than feeling terrible. And the picture of us at Yale, it was for Parent Day. Chris had never been, so we went."

He nods, his blue eyes bitingly clear. "So are you going to put the picture up?"

She stares at him, her eyes challenging. "It's a picture of Rory and her dad and me at Yale. Of course I'm putting it up."

He grunts. "You know what? I'm gonna spare us the trouble right now because my tolerance for this bullshit is at a low."

He goes to the table where she set the picture and, stepping deftly around her, places the picture smack dab in the middle of the mantle. He takes a step back and cocks his head, nodding.

"Yeah, that looks nice. Because it's Rory and her parents, getting along at Yale for Parent Day because everybody knows that Lorelai and Christopher never got along, especially since he willingly left her to raise a kid at sixteen."

His cutting gaze goes to her and she grits her teeth, her anger surfacing.

"I'm guessing that you're about to tell me that no matter what, Christopher is Rory's dad and he's a part of her life and because of that, you and Christopher will be connected long after the ink has dried on the divorce papers. And guess what Lorelai?" he steps back from her, his hands ready to gesticulate, "I don't like it. I don't like how you're so goddamn passive about how he used Rory to get to you, how he could so easily worm his way into your life with Rory. He," he points to Christopher's smiling face, "wasn't there. He didn't want to be there. He didn't want the responsibility of being a real father, so he would just pop in and you would let him. And you will still let him."

He turns from her, the fury evident in every line of his body and he tosses the tape measure into Bert. His heart is pounding so hard he feels as though he's run a mile at his best time. He moves around the room, still not looking at her and picks up his tools, dumping all of them in Bert and bending down to close the hid and lift him up. He goes to the door, his hand on the doorknob.

"Where are you going?" she asks, her voice hollow and he feels sick, sick of being like this, of tearing at her and having her tear at him.

"I'm going back to the diner," he gets out, not bothering to find an excuse-he just needs to leave.

"I thought we said-"

He drops Bert and rotates quickly to give her a piercing look, and is a little surprised to find her so close to him, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes flashing.

"Why am I doing this? Christopher is never going to be out of your life and you're never going to cut him off entirely because of Rory and I know this, but I can't accept it. It's killing me to think that you give this guy free pass after free pass and the one time I fuck up, it's over. If Chris called you right now, would you answer?"

"Yes," she bites out.

"Because he's Rory's father and because you care about him."

"Yes and no, I don't care about him the way you say I care about him. He's her father, I'm her mother, we_ are_ connected. Just like you and Anna are connected through April," she says, her voice rising to match his.

"Except our bond wasn't strengthened by matrimony or by me repeatedly showing up and Anna just letting me waltz right in!"

She can't say anything to that and he shakes his head, causing his thoughts to dip and swirl about.

"I have to go, I just have to go."

He picks up Bert and opens the door, closing it behind him with a firm click.

Her heart is lashing out at her rib cage and she places a hand under her breast to keep it from escaping. Her mouth is dry and so are her eyes, but her palms are slick with sweat. She inhales and exhales slowly, carefully, concentrating on the rhythm of breathing. Her mind is quickly regaining verbal and voluntary cognitive functioning and she silently curses herself for even pulling the picture out. She knows the topic of anything relating to Christopher is one that drives him to the edge, but she simply forgot.

She looks back at the mantle and looks away, saliva suddenly lubricating her mouth and throat. Of course Luke has a right to be incensed, but she and Christopher are tied together through a child. She doesn't love him, she's not even sure she's ever really loved Christopher now that she knows what it's like to love Luke.

She closes her eyes and feels the sunlight start to fade as the afternoon dies. She shouldn't be here, thinking. She should be doing. He walked out, he's giving up and she made a promise not to let him give up. She'll remind him of that and if he gives her a speech about broken promises, then she'll give him one right back, one that's worthy of her being made Speaker of the House.

She puts on the only shoes readily available-bright red rain boots-and opens the door, ready to march herself to Luke's.

She stops in the doorway when she sees Luke sitting on the bottom step of her porch, bent forward, Bert sitting next to him.

She closes the door softly and walks down the steps to sit next to him, careful to sit as close to him as possible without touching.

He doesn't do anything that might make her aware he acknowledges her presence, so she looks at him staring ahead at the yard, at his green truck.

"I couldn't go," he says, apologetically, and she jumps as his deep voice breaks the long silence.

"I was coming after you, so you saved yourself."

He gives her a sideways glance and sighs, hanging his head.

"I'm sorry about what I said, about you being passive. It isn't my place to talk about how you handle things between you and him."

Her fingers encircle his wrist and she feels his warmth, the blood flowing through his veins and she loves this small contact, glad to have it and know that he is right beside her. He didn't run. He stayed.

"Don't be sorry. It's your place to tell me whatever you want and I get to do the same, so. You are right-I am passive when it comes to him and to you it might seem like you're watching the longest Lifetime movie in history, but I can't dwell on the thoughts of him abandoning me and Rory. It's like the _Perfect Storm_ when I start to think about it and if I continue, I would be two seconds from being George Clooney, going down with the ship. I couldn't go down with Rory and I can't go down now."

His fingers cover hers. "But you can."

He turns his face towards her and her eyes become watery.

"Look, I'm never going to like Christopher and I said that I can't accept the connection, but I will have to because you mean too much for me to quit."

She nods and he pulls her up into his arms.

"You keep on meeting me halfway," she says into his shoulder and she can feel him nod into her hair.

"Why?" she asks and she pulls back to search his face.

He does not hesitate with his answer.

"Because we could be happy. And that 'could' keeps me going and keeps me sure."

She grips him tighter and reaches her lips up to his. They touch softly, barely, like a whisper, but it has the effect of a clap of thunder rippling through their bodies.

Inside he is bursting, never knowing how powerful absence of the familiar can be when it is once again within grasp. He lowers his mouth to hers and she meets him halfway, the kiss blooming into something much more scorching than passion, much more tender than compassionate love. It engulfs them and they stand on the porch, wholly into each other, night descending upon them.


	5. The Dumbing Down of Love

**Disclaimer: **All characters and places belong to ASP, DR, and the CW.

**A/N: **I just wanted to say thank you for the reviews. They buoyed my confidence. I'm sorry that it took so long to update-college happened. Also, the title of this chapter comes from a Frou Frou song of the same name.

The afternoon is chilly and the leaves are changing color. The air is crisper and somehow, things taste better. Things are better. This is his favorite time of year, fall. There's still a little taste of summer around the edges and winter is slowly rolling in and yet there is a middle, a sort of truce between two opposing seasons.

He takes a pad and writes this thought down, knowing that April would appreciate something like that. He has learned that even though she's the next Gregor Mendel, she has a quixotic side that she likes to bring out in most of her letters to him and Lorelai. He makes a note to shop for the bonsai garden she was pestering him to buy before she returned to Stars Hollow and to include a sampling of changing leaves in the next letter, per her request.

An order for a slice boysenberry pie comes in and he plates it, delivering it swiftly to the customer. He remembers the post-it note she left on the mug this morning and boxes a whole pie, scribbling 'Crazy Junkie' on it and placing it on the shelf behind the counter next to his keys and cell.

He picks up his pad of notes and feels a quick pang of sadness. He misses April. He didn't think it would be so hard to watch her walk past the security checkpoint and wave back until she was out of sight. He didn't think that the same ride coming back from the airport, even though Lorelai was there next to him, her warm hand on his thigh and her ridiculous music playing on the radio, could feel so empty without April's chatter. Now that he's a parent, he can truly say he knows what it's like to miss a child.

He checks his watch and silently curses. It is 4:45 already. He has to close the diner in thirty minutes and get ready for what could be a very awkward and potentially nerve breaking dinner. He flips the sign to 'Closed' and the diner periodically empties. He helps Caesar clean the diner, sees him off, and heads upstairs to change.

Before he leaves, he checks over his appearance, making sure he doesn't look like all the other times he went for dinner at her parents' house. Although Emily and Richard's opinion towards him has warmed considerably, he still feels apprehensive in their presence, like he has a permanent grease spot on his tie or shirt

He locks the diner and decides to walk the distance to her house, preferring to clear his head and give her the extra five (he can make it ten if he slows his pace) minutes he knows she needs.

The paper bag in his hand swings gently back and forth as he strolls through the middle of town. He hears a cat call and shakes his head, not bothering to turn around to see Miss Patty standing besides the studio barn door.

"Did I ever tell you God made suits for you to wear?" she calls out.

"Yes, Patty, you have," he says, still walking, "and you also said God made suits for me to strip out of."

Patty laughs and raises an eyebrow. "My, aren't we in a extremely jovial mood."

He turns, shrugs and grins. "See me tomorrow, things might be different."

They wave each other off and he continues his walk, the dead weight feeling in his stomach increasing with every step.

He is about to stick his key into the door when it swings back and she comes out, flashing him a quick smile.

"Okay, I'm ready. Wait, I forgot something," she says, pivoting and running back into the house. He makes a move to enter and she yells, "No, don't come in. I'm coming, I'm coming!"

"I brought the pie from the diner, so unless you plan on scarfing it down on our way, I think I should put it in the kitchen," he calls out, stepping into the entryway.

"Actually, the pie is for my mother. I know, I know, but she hears me licking my fork and salivating and the crinkle of the pie plate and she wants to know why I'm addicted to boysenberry. I tried to convince her that eating boysenberry pie will make her lose her millions and crack her china, but the woman simply does not listen to facts," comes her muffled voice from upstairs.

He shakes his head and Paul Anka appears, wagging his tail and apparently taking delight in his exasperation. He bends and pets the dog's head, giving him a good scratch behind the ears.

"Hey Paul. How are Peter and Mary?"

Paul Anka cocks his head to one side and then lays down, his paw on his shoe.

"That good, huh?" he asks and looks up when she runs down the stairs and into the kitchen.

She re-emerges a few seconds later, bends down to rub Paul Anka's snout, and then ushers him out the door, locking it behind her.

She turns to him and they stand looking at each other on the porch.

She's wearing a new black wrap dress with cap sleeves that is buttoned at the throat, creating a slight keyhole, giving the viewer (in this case him) a peek at her creamy skin. The fabric is made of wool and silk and falls around her body as if it were made exclusively for her. Her favorite coat of the season, a black, double-breasted calf length wool coat with wide cuffs and collar, hangs over one arm and she is holding a sleek black leather clutch. Her long, finely shaped legs end in black stilettos that are tied to her ankles by strips of satin. Her hair is done up in a sleek up do and she is wearing diamond studs and barely any makeup.

He is wearing a sleek charcoal gray suit that compliments his athletic build. His jacket is unbuttoned, displaying a black fine cotton dress shirt with a French collar and barrel cuffs, the first few black, gleaming buttons undone to show the golden hollow of his neck and a black cashmere v-neck sweater that settles on his waist, covering a classic black leather belt. His shoes are black oxfords with a natural shine. He has cut his hair so that it doesn't touch his collar and he looks younger, almost British elite collegiate.

Her perfume is light and fruity and he thinks about trying to make a joke about that, but she is staring at him hungrily, her blue eyes so light to the point that they resemble the froth on a wave as it crashes into an object.

He knows that he is doing it also, staring at her with the same intensity, the same rough desire that catches him by surprise every time she looks at him without speaking.

She closes the distance between them and kisses him, searchingly, longingly, thoroughly. His hands move to her waist and then slip up to her back, where he pulls her into him, their separate heat becoming mutual.

They break away at the same time, placing their foreheads together. He hears her inhale slow and deep and he smiles.

"I think we're long overdue for a heavy make out session. Let's catch up now," she says huskily, her face in his neck.

"It's the clothes and cologne that's making you behave this way," he replies, filtering the smugness out of his voice. When he told her he was going shopping for a new outfit, she laughed at him and told him not to bring home a burgundy linen suit.

He didn't.

She stands back from him, holding onto both of his arms and looks at him again.

"You look too good for me," she says, a smile playing on her lips, but he can hear that punishing note in her voice and he takes her coat and puts it on her, running his thumbs over her cheekbones when he finishes adjusting her collar.

"_We_ look too good for each other."

She smiles and takes his hand and they walk to the jeep. He goes to the driver side but she stops him, shaking her head firmly.

"No, no, I'm driving. You're gonna have to be the Sundance Kid to my Butch Cassidy tonight."

He glances at her shoes. "Lorelai, you're wearing heels, serious heels that can be turned into very expensive shivs. Are you serious?"

She puts one hand on her waist. "Luke, I know you're going to say 'No, I don't,' but do you know who Scully is?"

He purposefully does not respond and she nods, a triumphant gleam in her eyes.

"Uh huh, that's right," she states and unlocks the driver side.

"Besides, I don't want you de-sexifying that suit. I want you to sit there and look all purty like the metro I knew you were." She gives him a quick kiss before sliding onto the seat.

He gives her heels another glance and grumbles his way over to the passenger side.

They stand in front of the dark oak door, standing close to each other, Lorelai shuffling from one foot to the other.

"If you're cold, let's go inside. I heard that most houses these days have fireplaces. Even better, they have a heater. I'm sure your parents have a turbo heater that also makes French vanilla coffee, which would, undoubtedly, appeal to your tastes."

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, nodding. "You're right, I'm being insane. Why am I so nervous? This is Emily and Richard. My parents. We've been getting along to such an extent I'm betting that we could, after extensive acting classes, pass as a moderately happy family. They know you, you know them. They tolerate you. You secretly love them. They already know about us and they, I think, accept it. They're fine, we're fine, we can do this."

She looks at him, her blue eyes betraying her anxiety. "Luke, I'm nervous. I've never felt this way before. Why am I feeling this way?"

He hears her complete and total sincerity and digs deep to find an answer. Ever since they got back together, Lorelai's been watchful, more careful with what she says and does, with how she conducts everything, from how she runs the inn to how she eats her pancakes. Whenever she touches him, even when it's a quick butt pinch, it's infused with meaning, as if she's reassuring him or, more likely, herself. When she talks to Rory, her tone is more motherly, less best friend. These conversations last longer and Lorelai listens, nodding and sipping her coffee, thoughtful.

She is changing and she doesn't even know it.

He puts an arm around her shoulders and rubs her arm. "You're feeling this way because, well, this is important to you. You want them to know that this is it, that there are no more ringers, that you're as tired as they are with the state of your romantic life. You want them to be happy for you, really happy because you are happy and you're afraid that they have run out of that kind of happiness. But they haven't. And they know."

He places a kiss on her forehead and she sighs, turning her face into his neck.

"Luke, you're my Jennifer Melfi. But you smell better than her. And I'm not a gangster. Although I have seen _The Godfather _several times, so I guess I can emulate Vito if the situation calls for it. But I like Tony better. I don't have to stick cotton balls in my mouth if I want to threaten someone."

He can tell by her playful voice and the allusions to fictional characters that she is relaxing and in two minutes they'll walk to the door, ring once, a maid named either Conchita, Astrid, or Svetlana will answer, take their coats and Emily will come out and usher them into the sitting area for fortifying drinks.

Two minutes later, after the doorbell ceases to ring, a tall, pale woman answers the door.

"Hello, we're here for dinner," Lorelai says, stepping into the foyer.

"Oh, yes. Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore are waiting for you in the living room. May I take your coat?" she asks, already reaching for Lorelai to help her take it off.

"That's okay, I got it," he interjects, taking her coat off and handing it to the maid.

"Margenta, why are you holding my daughter and her guest hostage? How are we going to have drinks before dinner if you're busy telling them your life story?"

Emily's voice arrives before she does and before they know it, they are in the living room, settling themselves on the rather comfortable upholstered love seat.

"Hello, Lorelai," Richard says, nodding to her with a smile, "Luke."

"Hello Richard, how are you?" he asks.

"Good, good. I can't be any other way-Emily would not allow it," he says good-naturedly.

Emily shakes her head at him and turns to them, her eyes taking in their appearance.

"So what can I get the two of you? Tonic Lorelai? Scotch for you Luke?"

Typical Emily- not saying what's plainly written on her face and trying to get him to drink off her terrible Scotch.

"A tonic would be fine, Mom."

"And can you make that Scotch on the rocks Emily?"

Lorelai looks over at him, bemused, and he shrugs.

"Of course I can. And the ice is fresh, so it'll be just perfect."  
While she busies herself making their drinks, they talk to Richard, asking him about his recuperation and he, in turn, asking them about their businesses.

"Here you are," Emily says, handing them both their drinks. She sits on the couch opposite them and listens in for a while on the conversation, adding snarky remarks that makes him acknowledge where Lorelai got her humor.

Soon dinner is ready and they go to the table, sitting in their usual places, except things suddenly feel different. Everyone is silent as they eat their salads and he bites back the urge to comment on the fact that Lorelai is willingly eating lettuce that's not covered in Ranch dressing.

They are silently eating roasted pork loin with herbed new potatoes and grilled asparagus and he can't take the silence, especially because Lorelai is across from him, looking at her asparagus as if it might leap up and pick her nose and she doesn't say that the asparagus looks like it might leap up and pick her nose.

"Emily, this pork is very good. And the herb potatoes are perfectly herbed," he says, breaking the silence.

Three pairs of eyes turn to him, expressing varying degrees of surprise and he looks down at his plate, more uncomfortable than before.

"Thank you, Luke. I wanted to try something different. I'm glad you like it," she says nicely and he glances at her, wondering if she's suffering from some kind of mental lapse. She's looking at him intently, a small smile on her face.

"I can't help but notice how well the two of you look tonight," Richard says and Lorelai turns her attention from the staring contest with the asparagus to her father.

"Well, thanks Dad. We thought about calling you guys up and doing a little fashion show, but we thought it would be more economical if we just chose the best outfit and see how it goes."

"That was very considerate of you Lorelai. I have to ask then, did you drive wearing those shoes?"

Lorelai rolls her eyes and looks at Luke. "You got to him didn't you?"

He nods. "Through advance Jedi mind tricks."

"So I see that Luke was concerned as I am about you driving in stilts," Richard says.

"Luke, you fold most easily. You should insist that you drive."

"Yes, but see, I have on a very flattering black dress and my hair is done up and I have on my special perfume-he is not immune to my wiles."

He takes a sip from his glass of water and throws a glare towards Lorelai. She smiles and eats a potato.

"How is Rory?" Emily asks.

"Oh, she's fine. She loves NYU and the city. I have to remind her on several occasions that Sex and the City does not apply to real life," Lorelai responds casually, picking at the asparagus.

Emily chooses to ignore that last part of her response. "I read her article in the New Yorker. I was so proud I had to read it at the DAR meeting. Oh, you should have seen Margot Whiting's face, it was priceless."

Richard and Emily start laughing and Lorelai looks to her mother, startled. "What about Margot Whiting's face was so priceless?"

Emily settles herself and answers, "Margot's son Peter is a journalism major at Columbia and so far he can't even get a sentence published in the school's newspaper and just this past week she was bragging about how he might be the next Carl Bernstein. Well, on Wednesday, I read a loud Rory's piece and Margot's face, which is already stiff with Botox, looked like a petrified raccoon encased in ice! I nearly lost my composure!"

Lorelai laughs along with her parents and he grins, not just because the story is funny, but also because he loves to see her and her parents getting along. He cherishes these moments for her and pulls them out for them to inspect and laugh over with Rory or just between them.

"So, Luke, how is April? Is she enjoying New Mexico?" Richard asks as the laughter dies down.

He swallows his last bite of roast pork loin and wipes his mouth with his napkin.

"Uh, yeah, April's fine. She misses Stars Hollow and complains that it shouldn't be so hot in the fall."

"Yeah, and Paul Anka misses her too. He mopes around the house, looking like he lost a limb. Or his personal masseuse," Lorelai chimes in.

"Will she be spending Thanksgiving with the both of you?" Emily asks.

"Yes, and then she goes back to New Mexico for Christmas and New Years'," Lorelai answers.

"Well, I would like to meet April. After what I've heard of her from Rory and Lorelai, she seems very bright," Emily says to him.

He is momentarily taken aback. Emily wants to meet April? He replays her words again, looking for any hidden meanings or death traps. She sounded like she genuinely wanted to meet her.

He glances at Lorelai and she looks just as surprised as he is.

"Oh, Mom, I don't know, she might think we're offering her to Dracula when we pull up to the driveway."

Emily fixes Lorelai with one of her signature exasperated looks. "Honestly Lorelai, the things you say, comparing your father and I to Dracula."

She turns her look on to him and he wishes that he remembered Lorelai's rule about never finishing a meal so he could stuff something in his mouth right now instead of feeling like he's about to be scolded.

"Richard and I would really like to meet your daughter. She was going to be a part of this family and, by the way things are progressing between the two of you, she probably will be."

He feels Lorelai's eyes on him and he silently panics. If I say, 'Emily, I don't know about bringing April to dinner' then I'm saying I'm not thinking ahead and then Lorelai will know that I'm not thinking ahead and then we'll get into it about a future I haven't even given any real thought to. _Now you're lying to yourself. You ARE thinking ahead. Every time your body aches when you draw away from her, you are thinking about what it would be like to never have to draw away. When you were standing beside Rory on her graduation day and you were thinking about how far she's come and how far she has yet to go and you told her that you were going to be there for her-you were thinking ahead. When you and Lorelai go driving and you spot a house and you look over and she's looking at it too-the both of you are thinking ahead. You want this. Start to make it real._

"Emily," he says, looking up at her, his face serious, "how about the Friday night after Thanksgiving?"

Emily shows no sign of surprise or pleasure-instead she looks to Richard, as if checking a calendar. Richard nods.

"Yes, all right, that's agreeable," Emily says and calls for Margenta to bring the desert.

He ventures a glance at Lorelai and is worried. Her face is closed and she is looking at him in an odd way, as if she's unsure of him, unsure of any of this. Her blue eyes look pained and he wants so badly to reach his hand out and caress her wrist, but at that moment their plates are cleared for desert and she puts her hands in her lap.

"Mother, Luke bought the boysenberry pie," Lorelai says as the maid comes back with pear clafouti in individual custard dishes.

"Oh, my God, you're right!" Emily exclaims and gets up to go to the kitchen.

"Crap, I forgot the pie in the jeep. I'll be right back," he says, grateful for the chance to get up and escape Lorelai's still eyes.

"I'll help Mom with whatever Mom does when there's a desert crisis," Lorelai says, getting up to follow her mother.

Richard sits alone at the table, perplexed and yet unconcerned. He could tell that Lorelai was afraid of the unspoken promise in Luke's voice-maybe because that promise had not been fulfilled or because she herself has made promises and broken them-but he sees it as a good thing, that she's afraid. She's in love with him. And she's afraid that she'll lose her happiness again.

He gets up and clears his throat. "I'm going to help Luke bring in the pie, I'll be right back."

When he gets no response, he goes outside to the driveway, coming to stand beside Luke, who is leaning against the jeep, a brown paper bag with his diner's insignia emblazoned on the front in his hands.

"My daughter loves you, Luke," Richard says after a moment and Luke nods.

"I know she does."

"But?"

"No buts. I know she loves me. And I love her. More than I thought."

"And there still are no buts?"

Luke stands up straight and faces Richard. They are almost tall alike, Luke a smidgen of an inch shorter than him. He watches as Luke takes a deep breath, his eyes a faint blue, and lets it out slowly.

"I made a promise to Lorelai. And I broke it. I made her feel insignificant and insecure. And I was supposed to know what I did, I was supposed to know that something was wrong, but either I chose not to see it or I really didn't know Lorelai like I thought," Luke says, looking straight into the man's face.

Richard nods, clapping Luke on the shoulder.

"I realize that the two of you have gone through a lot last year and that the both of you are still trying to figure certain things out, but don't let what dogged you last year dog you this time around. This is a chance for you and Lorelai to be happy, Luke. And it won't happen if you have reservations."

The younger man looks away from Richard and doesn't say anything for quite some time, as if he's digesting his words. When Luke speaks again, it's in a voice that sounds more final and deciding.

"I have let those reservations go-if I didn't, I couldn't be here, with you, standing in your driveway next to your daughter's jeep. I know what I want, I've always known, but I'm not sure if Lorelai believes that. And that's what I'm going to have to work on," Luke looks back at Richard and takes a deep breath.

"Let's go back in-they might think we hijacked the pie."

Emily hears Lorelai excuse herself from the table and a few seconds later she enters the kitchen and leans against the island, not looking at Emily, her face a jumble of anxiety and confusion.

"I thought you were going to help me with the dessert," she asks, watching her daughter jump a little and glances at her guiltily.

"Oh, um, yeah, uh, Luke forgot the pie in jeep."

Emily purses her lips and tells Margenta to please clear the pear clafouti from the table and package it for her daughter and the gentleman.

While Margenta is busy with her delegated task, Emily goes to stand next to Lorelai at the island.

"Lorelai, do you love Luke?"

Lorelai instantly focuses on her mother, at a loss for words for a few seconds.

"Well? Why are you looking at me as though I've said something disgusting?"

She shakes her head, an astonished smile spreading across her face.

"No, I'm just…well," she shifts to rest on another heel, "I'm just surprised that you would even ask me that question."

Emily stares blankly at her.

Lorelai rolls her eyes and sighs, releasing a short whoosh of air.

"Yes. Very much."

"And do you want to marry him and have offspring?"

Lorelai inwardly cringes at how Emily says 'offspring', as if she's brushing up on her bedside manner.

"Double yes. And I already have a dog and I'm not big on white picket fences, but if they were yellow green then yeah, I'll take the fence."

Emily shakes her head and excuses Margenta from the kitchen. She goes to the opposite end of the island and reaches down to bring up two stout, short, square glasses. She reaches her hand lower and brings up a bottle of Johnny Walker. She pours a quarter of whisky in each glass, then screws back on the cap and sets the bottle in the middle of the table. She hands Lorelai a glass and takes a sip from her own.

Lorelai is beyond shocked now. _Johnny Walker? My mother drinking whisky? Is the world spinning in another direction?_

"Um, Mom, what…" Lorelai says, but Emily waves her words aside.

"If we're going through an especially horrendous dinner party or social gathering, which nine times out of ten involve my family and Richard's co-mingling, your father and I come in here, take out the glasses, and drink a glass, laughing silently."

She takes another sip and her face softens and for the first time in years Lorelai sees the woman that rocked her to sleep, who sang 'Wedding Bell Blues' to her when she was sick, who made her pretty little sandwiches in the shape of stars and moons. Her brown eyes are warm and sparkle like the whisky in the glass.

"It's those little moments, Lorelai, that equal love. Not the amount of years or how well we look together or what we've accomplished as a couple. It's the little things," she sets her glass down and goes to her daughter, putting her hands on her warm shoulders.

"I want the little things for you Lorelai. And I believe he can give them to you. I believe that, however inexplicably it might be to me at times, he makes you comfortable, he gives you what you need-the room to be yourself. And that's all I've ever wanted for you Lorelai," she rubs her shoulders and runs her hand lightly over the sides of her face, "for you to be content."

Lorelai's eyes are heavy with tears and her throat is clogged with the urgent desire to sob. She sets her glass down and hugs her mother tightly, letting the tears flow from her eyes, down her cheeks and onto her mother's silk shirt. She hasn't done this in more than awhile and is mildly surprised to find that her mother is small, smaller than she is, and yet she is so strong, stronger than she thought she could be.

She hears some sniffling and realizes that her mother is crying also, which worries her.

She pulls back and Emily's nose is a little red and the blue veins in her eyelids can be seen.

"Mom? Are you okay?"

Emily nods and picks up Lorelai's glass, handing it back to her. "Drink. We can't go back into the dining room looking like someone slapped us with beef shanks and sprayed us with lemon water."

Lorelai looks on as Emily grabs a paper towel, wets it, and dabs her face, lingering on her eyes and nose.

When she turns back to her, Emily is once again Emily, a strand of hair ne'er out of place.

"Emily? I have the pie. What do you want to…" Luke walks into the kitchen and stops, looking at Lorelai, the drink in her hand, the bottle on the table, the other glass, Emily, and then at Lorelai again.

"I'll just set it down here and, I don't know, and. Okay, continue," he rushes, setting the paper bag on the island counter and turning swiftly back through the doors.

Emily's lips twitch, betraying that she finds what just happened amusing and Lorelai downs the rest of her drink in order to swallow the laughter in her throat.

"Put that glass down Lorelai and help me plate this pie," Emily commands and Lorelai obeys, still suffering from some initial shock.

They work silently together until four generous pieces of boysenberry pie are centered perfectly on dessert plates and, because Lorelai insisted, a scoop of vanilla ice cream accompanies each slice.

Before they leave the kitchen, Emily mutters, "I can't believe I'm serving diner pie in my house."

They sit in her jeep, in her driveway, staring at nothing in particular. The night with her parents went much more smoothly than he thought. He definitely didn't think he would spill one third of his guts to Richard, nor did he think he would walk in on Lorelai and her mother bonding over whisky in the kitchen.

"Damn," he says softly, his voice breaking the silence like wind chimes on a summer day.

Lorelai turns her head towards him, dazed.

"Damn what?"

"I wish I had bought a camera phone just so I could take a picture of Emily drinking the hard stuff. It could be used as leverage, you know."

They don't say anything for several seconds and he notices that the Jeep is shaking. He glances over at her, her shaking shoulders and the hand she has over her mouth.

He starts to chuckle and she starts to laugh out loud, peals of laughter that fall on his ears and settles in his stomach, warming it.

He gets out the jeep and goes around to her door, helping her out. He retrieves the box of pear clafouti from the back and they walk up to the porch.

"I thought I was in some indie version of the Twilight Zone when she pulled out the whisky and poured. She even rotated the bottle so that it didn't drip down the neck. I should've asked her for a Superman," Lorelai laughs as she opens the door. They enter and he goes to the kitchen while Lorelai takes off her coat and shoes, hopping around the foyer until they are off and she goes to the kitchen, where he is peering into her well-stocked fridge, wondering if it would be better to freeze the dessert, but taking into consideration that it'll probably be tomorrow's breakfast.

"Are you going to eat this?" he asks, gesturing to the box on the table.

"Is that even a real question?"

He smiles and closes the fridge, coming over to where she is standing, leaning against the entryway.

"It was good tonight, wasn't it?" he asks her, his eyes intent on her face.

She nods and smiles a little, placing a hand on his coat lapel.

"Yeah, it was a good night," her eyes meet his and he can see she wants to say something. He can't tell if it's good or not so good. Hopefully, it has nothing to do with April coming to Friday night dinner. Then again, it probably does because he has a terrible habit of blighting himself.

"You're biting back something," he prods, deciding that the sooner she speaks, the better his chances.

"How can you tell?" she queries, twisting her mouth in order not to grin.

"Well, you periodically bite the inside of your lip, you're tapping a strange beat on my chest, and your eyes are too blue. You're biting back something. You might choke yourself."

She sighs and gives him a searching look.

"Come, walk with me," she says, tugging on his coat and leading him into the living room and onto the couch.

"Okay, we walked. Now speak," he says as she tucks her legs beneath her and leans back onto the cushion, one hand under her chin, her eyes on his face.

"You set a dinner date with my parents and April," she begins and he mentally kicks himself. Of course. Why wouldn't this be difficult?

"Yeah, I did. They wanted to meet her and April is mildly curious about Emily, the Grand Inquisitor," he states offhandedly.

"By the way, thank you for getting her interested in Spanish history," he adds dryly.

She gives him a bare smile and settles back into watching him in a sharp, analytical way that reminds him of Emily.

"Luke, I love you. Do you know that? That I love you?" she questions, pensive.

He turns his body towards her. "Yes, I know that you do. Don't you know that?"

She looks away from him. "I sometimes don't know. I think I don't say it often enough."

He frowns, wondering what the hell is going on inside her head.

He takes her hand and rubs her fingers, examining their long gracefulness.

"You don't need to lavish me with 'I love yous'. I know you do."

"How do you know?"

"I just know."

"But how? How? I know that you love me. I know it every time you look at me, every time you touch me, even when we fight, I know. My reasons for doubting it were Anna Karenin-ish and I paid for it. But you have serious reasons to be skeptical, real, concrete reasons. How do you know that I love you?"

He studies her face for a moment, wondering if there's a right answer to what she's asking. What can he possibly say to make her irrefutably know that he knows, that he doesn't doubt what she feels for him?

_There's nothing you can say. _There's got to be something. _Like what? "I just know?" If she didn't get it then, she's not going to get it now. _But she wants to know. She has to know. That's been our problem, communication. I have to tell her something. _Well, you can either pick up Shakespeare's sonnets and spout off a couple lines or you can do what you do best-show her. _Show her.

He leans forward and slowly touches his lips to hers, tasting the peppermint she had before they left dinner. She responds immediately, kissing him back tenderly. It's a sweet kiss, full of promise and sincerity, full of truth and he moves his arms so that they are wrapped around her, bringing her into his chest.

He slowly breaks the kiss and she is looking into his eyes, seeing that he means it when he says he just knows.

A sudden well of passion sweeps up between them and she kisses him, this time with more ardor and heat. Her hands come up to his neck, feeling his rapid pulse and then to his face, where she smoothes her palms against his stubble. His hands rub circles into her back and it's like he's touching her though her dress, his hands making her shiver, everything about him making her shiver.

They part, panting, and his eyes are silver blue, biting and cutting with need. Her stomach twists with the force of his gaze and she closes her eyes, the need to control this desire and the want to give in to it tearing at her emotions. She can feel the struggle in him too and she is glad that she isn't fighting this battle alone.

He sighs heavily and she knows that he's leaving. Sure enough, he stands, bringing her up with him and she still has her eyes closed. It feels as though a draft surrounds her as he steps back from her, his warmth leaving her.

Instinctively she moves towards him to be closer to that warmth and she opens her eyes to find him turned away from her, his head hanging a little low, a hand on his hip.

He is torn. He doesn't want to leave, but they haven't made love in over a year. He wants her so badly, it hurts to leave her, but if he stays, he'll be lost, he'll be hers completely and there will be no turning back, no needling fears, no second thoughts. He's standing at the edge of an abyss he's confronted before but never really stepped off into. It is now, when he's fully committed to the idea of them, that he is hesitating, afraid that he's not ready for the unknown. He needs a push. He needs a hand on his back, a whisper of his name to know that it's okay to fall into this.

As if reading his thoughts she places her hand flat on his shoulder blade and breathes his name.

"Luke."

He releases a pent up breath and turns, kissing her until the only noise in his ears is that of his heartbeat, thudding at a high rate.

"I don't want to go," he whispers against her lips.

She presses her body against every line of his and slips her hand inside his coat, running them down the tense muscles of his back.

"Then don't go. Stay with me," she whispers back.

It isn't until he is lying over her that he is aware of where they are. Her room seems larger than he remembers it and her bed is bigger than he remembers. The sheets beneath her are the color of fall leaves and her pillows resemble chocolate clouds. Her brown hair is spread over them and he remembers slowly taking her hair down, feeling its weight in his hands, rubbing its silkiness between his fingertips.

The light from the moon streams in, casting shadows about the room and illuminating her skin, making her glow.

He knows that it is cold in the room, but the friction of their skin creates little fires at every pore, displacing that fact. His mind frees itself from its self-created fog and he marvels at feeling her nakedness against his own. He runs a hand down from her neck to the top of her pelvis, then back up again, taking his time to draw zig zagging lines on her stomach and brush his knuckles over her breasts.

She gasps and squeezes his shoulder, her other hand taking his traveling one and moving it across her collarbone and down to her chest. He smiles a little at how she's still unafraid to guide him, to show him what she wants.

He plays with her, kissing the inside of her neck and behind her ear, kissing the soft, cool flesh under each breast until it is hot like the rest of her body. He places his hands beneath her back and runs his fingers from her neck to her knee, causing her to press herself against him, causing him to momentarily forget and press himself against her, almost meeting her unsaid request.

She groans when he pulls away a little and brings his mouth down upon hers, exploring it, sucking the breath from his body and giving him hers. She leaves his mouth and goes to his neck, to a favorite spot right underneath his jaw bone and kisses it, moving lower until her lips tremble with the force of his beating heart. Her hands continue the descent her lips could not and she smoothes them over his stomach and his sides, coming around his hips and over his butt.

His skin is hot in some places, burning in others. She ventures lower, coming into contact with the heaviness bearing on her and he expels a quick breath, his body tightening above her. She toys with him, applying varying degrees of pressure to each sensitive area until he moves her hands away and crushes her mouth with a bruising kiss.

He is still kissing her when he slides within her, the movement fluid and at once. She sighs into his mouth, automatically arching her back to feel more, to be closer. He brings one of her legs up and pushes himself all the way in, the feeling of completeness almost too overwhelming for the stillness that has come over them.

She begins to move, grasping his shoulder and his hand. He tries to fight her movements, wanting to savor the moment, but the slow, rhythmic rocking of her hips pull him into their ebb and flow and he is licking the fires that are building in every cell of his body.

"Luke," she breathes and he is looking at her upturned face, at her glazed bright eyes and he knows she's nearing that point where there seems to be no beginning and no end, where things run together into one continuous and conscious stream of feeling. He struggles to come back from his own approaching heights and focuses on her. He wants to be aware of her when that tightness is released. He wants them to see each other and know that they are singular at that moment.

"Lorelai," he says, deep and hoarse and her eyes flick to his, but she is almost gone.

"Lorelai, look at me. Look at me. Don't let go, look at me."

Her eyes become a little clearer and she squeezes his hand, signaling that she can hear him, that she knows.

He strokes deeper and longer and a telltale shudder and series of convulsions break over them, repeatedly, leaving them limp as they flutter back to the earth.

She is still grasping his hand when he pulls the sheets around them and brings her back against his front, his face in her hair. Their clasped hands rest under her chin and his arm is heavy on her waist, its weight comfortable and achingly familiar.

She kisses the top of his knuckles.

"I love you, Luke. I love you," she whispers into the newly intimate darkness.

"I know," he whispers in her ear, his breath warm.

They fall asleep and he falls into the abyss, his lifeline secure and nestled in his heart.

She wakes the next morning, wrapped in the sheets, her body feeling light. She moves an outstretched arm across the other side of the bed and her heart skips when she doesn't touch his heated skin or feels his course hair. His place is cold and she shivers, her mind blinking through various possible scenarios.

_He was kidnapped. _He went out to buy breakfast foods other than coco puffs and pop tarts. _The CIA recruited him for a black op mission out in the Adriatic Sea and last night was his last night a free man. _He's walking Paul Anka. _Aliens abducted him, performed terrible tests and messed with his memory, then returned him to a field and he's waiting to be rescued, naked and disoriented. _He's at the diner. _He's gone. _He's here.

Her mind pauses as it registers noise coming from downstairs, coming from her kitchen. She can hear sizzling and crackling. She smells pancakes. Chocolate chip pancakes. She can hear the beat of a whisk and deep grumbling and then a dog's whine that changes from wanting appeasement to getting it.

She flops onto her back, a huge grin breaking upon her face. He's here. And he's making breakfast. She rolls over to where he slept and buries her face in his pillow, his scent assailing her sense of smell. No more Bed, Bath, and Beyond scent. This pillow smells like the man downstairs, the man who uses oat soap and the best smelling cologne ever created by the French. The pillow smells of him.

She hugs the pillow to her and allows herself to feel _this_. She can't really describe what _this _is. Maybe it's the knowledge that they came together again and it felt as it always did, yet it was better, heavier, more momentous. Maybe it was the words he spoke last night, coaxing her up from the depths of pleasure to be with him, to hold on, to see her own love and desire reflected his eyes. Maybe it's the feeling of knowing all of him again, of having him totally in her house, his presence once again in every room. Maybe it's knowing that this overwhelming, continuous rush of love for this man scares her and she's fine with being scared.

She takes one last whiff of his pillow and gets up, needing a few seconds to make sense of her legs. She shuffles to the bathroom and takes a quick hot shower. When she's done, she brushes her teeth, thinking of all the things she needs to buy now. Another toothbrush with no technical terms and an 'on' button, peppermint toothpaste, big, solid colored towels, oat soap. _Oh the fun we shall have, Luke, _she thinks while she dries her hair.

She dresses in jeans and a t-shirt, puts her hair up in a ponytail and puts on her striped dark and light blue footsies.

She comes slowly down the stairs, her excitement turning into a 'morning after' anxiety. She stops at the foot of the stairs, takes a deep breath and walks through the connecting hall into the kitchen. He is standing in front of the stove, his short hair tussled and he's wearing a gray t-shirt and the pants from last night. He looks good.

She comes up quietly behind him and observes as he cooks bacon to accompany the virtual breakfast feast before her: pancakes, eggs, sausages, bread, fruit salad, hash browns, even pop tarts.

She slips an arm around his waist and puts her head on his upper arm. She smiles when he brings his arm up and puts it around her waist and draws her closer into his side. He places a kiss on her forehead and she can feel the steadiness of his heartbeat beneath her ear.


	6. Mushaboom

**A/N: **This is the last real chapter. The next one is an epilogue and is similar to this one, giving a peek into their lives. Thank you for the great reviews and I hope you enjoy this latest installment. Sorry it took so long.

The title for this chapter is taken from the song of the same name by Feist.

"I want to sex you up," she sings as she finishes her pastry, sneaking a glance at him. She waits for his quizzical look which will turn into an exasperated sigh and he'll say under his breath, 'Not in the diner, Lorelai,' to which she'll reply, 'Where then, the office?' and his ears will turn a nice shade of grapefruit at the very appealing thought.

He does give her a quizzical look, but instead of sighing he laughs, a deep, rumbling laugh that carries her, quite unexpectedly, along with him.

People in the diner, especially those not accustomed to him emitting a noise other than a grunt or a snarl or, on a Sunday when the breeze is slightly easterly and the sun isn't too high in the sky yet, a faint chuckle, are in awe, so much so that they forget that food goes into the mouth and not the nose or chin.

"What? Why are you laughing? You're scaring people," she says, her laughter still in her eyes.

"'I want to sex you up'? All I could see was you in fluorescent purple balloon pants and a big silk safari shirt doing some weird hustle dance," he replies, grinning as he wipes down the counter.

"So you _don't_ want me to sex you up while wearing bright purple pants and a huge silk shirt and doing a hustle dance?" she pouts, blinking rapidly.

He stops wiping and leans over, kissing the pout from her lips.

"Babe," he says when he pulls away, "whatever floats your boat."

She smiles and wipes her lip-gloss from his mouth. He reaches behind him for her to-go cup of coffee and a bag of donuts and hands it to her and she gives him a quick peck before getting up to leave.

She's almost to the door when she turns back like a thought suddenly popping into one's mind.

"Hey, are we taking the truck or do we want to treat April to a Bourne-esque car chase via my jeep and excellent motor vehicular handling?"

He finishes cashing out a customer before replying, "Well, sure, when you put it that way. Connecticut hasn't had a high speed chase like that in quite a while."

"I try to please, although there is a problem."

He nods, handing orders to a new waiter. "And what would that problem be, besides traumatizing my daughter not to mention terrifying other drivers?"

She sets her coffee cup on the counter, shaking her head. "No Russians. I have no Russians. Where can I find Russians? And no Luke, not in Russia."

"It's okay, I'll provide the Russians. And yes Lorelai, they will resemble the guy from Sex and the City but younger _and_ they will be dressed in black _and_ drive BMWs. Now go to work," he says patiently and she grins, sighing happily.

"I truly do adore you."

"Of course you do, I'm bringing the Russians," he smiles.

She rolls her eyes and leaves, waving back at him before she steps off the curb.

He watches her until he can't see her anymore and breathes deeply, still smelling her perfume.

He makes sure everything is fine in the front and the back before heading up to his apartment, well, what used to be his apartment.

Pushing the door open, he steps inside slowly, taking in the bare walls and gleaming wood floor. A few left over boxes are stocked in a corner and he goes over and kneels, taking down a couple of boxes until he reaches the one he wants. It's a medium sized box, but it is deep and it looks heavy, heavier than he remembered.

He picks it up and sets it on the last piece of remaining furniture, the kitchen table. Opening it, he rummages around, wondering why he even needs to rummage-what he's looking for isn't small.

He takes out her toothbrush, a blue sundress she left one night, David Bowie and U2 CDs, her shampoo, a towel he bought just for her, the spatula she melted while making a triple chocolate cake, the pan she burned while baking said cake, her hairbrush and a Ziploc bag of her clips and pins he found scattered throughout his apartment, a folder full of her notes and letters of apology and cards, a bottle of her perfume, the Star Trek collector's set of movies she bought as a random gift for him, a couple of pictures of the two them doing ordinary things (he stops for a while and looks through them, amazed at how a simple shot of the two of them sitting on the couch or him trying to teach her how to use a whisk or her shaving his face could be so powerful), a pair of earrings, her favorite flannel, the black belt with the classic silver buckle, the ring box, and…

He takes a second to look at the table with all her things laid on the table and reaches his hand in the box, lifting out what he was looking for.

His blue hat is a little crushed so he shakes it out until it resembles a hat and he takes off his black cap and puts it on top of her favorite flannel. He hasn't thought about old blue for a long time and now that things are moving forward and he's finally at a better place, his mind wandered back to the hat when they were lying in their bed. She had reached over and took his hat off the chair and put it on her head, backwards, of course, and mimed him and all he could think about was that it was the wrong color and the wrong fit.

He turns it in his hands, wondering if it'll still fit him, if he's changed too much for he hat. _Of course it'll still fit. Your head hasn't gotten bigger idiot. And besides, it's one size fits all Luke. That hasn't changed._

He releases a quick breath and puts it on, nestling it on his head the way he did a thousand times before. He packs her things back in the box and places it back, reminding himself to load the last boxes in the truck before they go to pick up April. He picks up the black hat and carries it downstairs, placing it beneath the counter.

The day passes by quickly and he closes the diner early. He brings the truck to the front of the diner and loads the boxes and then goes back in to get her coffee and his jacket. When he hears the chimes of the bell and her heels hitting the linoleum floor, he comes out from the back.

"Hey hon. Are you…" she breaks off in mid sentence, staring at his head.

He keeps his grin to himself and comes up to her, his amusement growing as her eyes stay glued to his head even while he hands her the coffee.

"Lorelai," he says importantly, "we really should get going. Gawking at my head won't get us anywhere."

"I'm not gawking at your head. I'm gawking at what's on it. Blue, or bluesy, as I like to call him when I'm in the shower. Bluesy," she says softly and she finally looks at him, one of her unreadable looks on her face, but he can tell it's a good unreadable look.

"Come on," he says, leading her out of the diner.

They are settled in the truck and heading out of Stars Hollow when she turns to him and says, "I still have something that belongs to you and I don't know if I should keep it or if I-"

"Keep it. I was planning on getting you a new one, anyway," he says, already knowing what she was referring to the second she said 'something'.

She doesn't say anything for several minutes and he sneaks a glance at her. Her light blue gaze is on him, assessing him in that serious way she has recently perfected.

"It's weird that I didn't notice how much I missed him until I saw ole blue. And I'm glad, I'm glad that I'm seeing him again, I'm glad that…that I'm getting a new something. I'm just glad."

He gives her a knowing smile and her hand a squeeze.

"Me too."

Normally, he would feel awkward when Lorelai's particular brand of oddness rears its head, but he is too preoccupied with trying to pick out April's brown head out of the crowd to focus on the fact that she is waving a heavily glittered, feathered, painted-in-sea-colors placard with 'April' splashed across in bubble letters.

In any other situation, the prospect of glitter and himself in close proximity, especially if this proximity ends in contact with his bodily person, would have him growling and glaring, but he is too nervous to notice the rain of glitter falling on him.

Soon, April will be walking towards them and then she will really be here. Will she be taller? Will she have a tan? Will she be cold? He should have brought a jacket and a scarf, just in case.

He checks his watch. Her plane landed thirty minutes ago. He checks the running board of flight information. Flight 56 Albuquerque to Hartford: on time.

He shuffles his feet anxiously and peers above the crowd, the knots in his stomach turning into a cheese press.

"Do you see her?" Lorelai asks, jumping up.

"No. Do you?"

"No."

He sighs and looks to her, worried.

She sets down the placard quickly and puts a reassuring arm around his waist. "She's coming. She probably has a lot of luggage. You know, rocks that have been polished, cases of water samples that need to be compared and tested, multitudes of presents for me and you and Rory and more for me. It could be that the model UFO and piece of fence from Area 51 had to be boxed and it's taking some time to unload from the plane."

He nods. "That could be the case. Although I'm skeptical about the UFO and the fence."

She rolls her eyes. "You don't believe me? Wait until I whip that fence out and me and April go over how she did it. She could very well be the next mastermind, criminal or not."

"You really love to give me little heart attacks, don't you?"

She gives him a quick kiss. "Of course. It keeps me younger."

He shakes his head and picks up her placard. "Resume your waving, crazy."

She takes it, slanting her eyes at him, and begins again, showering him with glitter.

Five minutes go by and his neck is hurting from straining when he sees a hand shoot up and move from side to side frantically.

"Dad! Lorelai!"

As soon as he hears her she breaks through a group of people, pulling a luggage trolley behind her. She lets it go and walks quickly to him, throwing her arms around his middle and hugging him tightly.

He hugs her back, relieved that she's here safely and happy that she's here and he's hugging her.

"I missed you Dad. I really did," she says, looking up at him, her brown eyes shining behind her glasses.

"I probably missed you more," he says and lightly tugs on her hair, which is straight and out from her usual ponytail, cascading past her shoulders.

He sets her away and looks her over. She is dressed in jeans, a tan pea coat, fingerless gloves, and a thick scarf that he pulls down a little from her face. Her glasses are new and she looks like the daughter he sent to New Mexico except her hair is done differently and she's wearing lip-gloss.

"See? No gaping holes, no missing pieces. I'm all here and accounted for," she says and moves away from him with a smile and hugs Lorelai, who still acts a bit surprised every time April shows her affection.

"I saw your placard and I felt so special. Thank you Lorelai," April comments as she steps back. Lorelai smiles, giving her a modest shrug.

"Oh, well, I made sure to use two bottles of glitter so that you could see it from a mile away. Did you see it from a mile away?"

April nods. "Oh, yeah, I saw it from the runway. In fact, I saw Dad getting a glitter shower-I shuddered for you Dad."

He grins and Lorelai shakes her head. "Shuddering over glitter? The both of you-eerie. "

"You're one to talk about eerie, the way you and Rory are basically two halves of a whole," he says, getting April's trolley and pulling it over to their little group.

"But I'm the better half, right?" she asks jokingly and April picks up the placard and the bag that was resting next to Lorelai's feet.

"Oooh, what's this?" she asks as she picks through the bag.

"Food that Lorelai insisted you must have as soon as you were in our presence," he replies dryly as they walk out the airport.

April takes out something that's wrapped in wax paper. "Tacos?"

"See Luke," she puts an arm around April and gives him a mournful look, "they have no tacos in New Mexico. She's been starved of the wonderful sustenance gleaned from a hard taco shell and meat filling. No tomatoes and lettuce and cheese hanging out with ground beef tossed with Pedro's secret spices. Look at her face," she puts a hand on April's cheek.

April looks at him mournfully, easily fitting into Lorelai's little play.

"No tacos, Dad," she whispers and he manages to keep a straight face.

"No tacos, Luke, taco-less. And fajita-less too, right April?"

She nods and looks through the bag, pulling out what must be a fajita.

"Oooh, fajita," April says, mystified.

Coupled with their mock-sad faces and April's mystified voice he can't help but chuckle.

"Okay, re-acquaint yourselves with the wonderful world of tacos while I get the truck," he says and they wave to him as he jogs to the parking garage.

When he's out of sight, April turns around and fixes Lorelai with her investigator look. Lorelai's only been privy to this look once before, when they told her they were together again and she asked to talk to Lorelai alone for a moment. And when that moment ended, Lorelai knew that Luke had a terrier in the form of his daughter.

Now that it has shown itself again, Lorelai is nervous. April did seem to like her, really like her. Was that all for her father's benefit? God, she does not want to be the wicked stepmother here.

"Dad told me that he moved out of the apartment. I asked him if he was living with you now and he acted coy. Why would he act coy?"

Lorelai mentally releases a relieved sigh. "Oh, well, it's a surprise. One that will be revealed to you in an hour or so. In the form of a structure. Where there's a yard. And a garden that yields real vegetables."

April doesn't say anything, but she can see the excitement bubbling up in her face. "A structure, huh, and a real garden?"

Lorelai nods and unwraps a taco, holding it to April's face. "Now eat because I haven't found a way to steel myself against your Bobby Goran stare yet and I've already revealed much more than I should've."

April smiles happily and takes a huge bite out of the taco.

"Whoa," she exclaims as she chews, "this is good. I might have to change my mandate on Mexican food."

When he comes back with the truck they load April's luggage and help him cover it with tarp, then they hit the road, talking about random things and eating tacos and fajitas-well Lorelai and April partake in the taco-fajita smorgasbord while he lectures them about the dangers of meat mixed with processed cheese.

They arrive in Stars Hollow and he rolls down his window so April can smell 'Hollow air'.

They pass the diner and Miss Patty's dance studio and he can see that April is waiting for something, as though she knows it's coming, but she doesn't want him to know. He looks to Lorelai and she just smiles.

When they pass Lorelai's house, April's face turns from false surprise to genuine confusion. She turns around and watches as the house becomes smaller and casts a quizzical look towards Lorelai, who has her head turned away purposefully as to not give anything away and then she turns to him, her brow creased.

"You passed Lorelai's house."

"Yep," he responds, trying not to grin.

"Why did you pass Lorelai's house?"

"Because that's not Lorelai's house anymore."

She gasps and turns to Lorelai, who shrugs.

"What happened? Eminent domain?" April asks the two of them, concerned.

"Unless Lane, Zach, and the twins are governmental henchpeople, then no," Lorelai says mildly and April gasps again.

"Lane and Zach? They live in your house? I mean, they, uh, they live there now? Really?"

"Yeah, Lorelai rented the house out to them," he responds and turns onto a street April's never seen, with houses tucked behind tall trees heavy with foliage.

April watches silently as they pull up on to a short gravel road and park in front of a house a little bigger than Lorelai's.

He turns off the engine and leans back, looking down at April's turned head. Lorelai is looking at her too, and the both of them appear to be anxious.

"Well," he says at last, "what do you think?"

April doesn't say anything, but motions to Lorelai that she would like to get out. Lorelai opens the door and they step out of the truck. He comes around from the driver's side and watches as April walks up to the front steps and looks up at the house.

The house itself is what can be best described as a moderately bigger version of Lorelai's house painted cream with grayish blue trim. The paneled door is a cayenne red with a bright brass mail slot, handle, and peephole. There are more French windows than the other house and a few of them have sills, where planters are sitting. She can see curtains with bright colors and patterns hanging from each window, each one of them saying that Lorelai Gilmore lives here.

She looks away from the house and at the yard, which they had a lot of. The ground is lightly covered with burned reds and golds and oranges and over in a corner near the garage is a pile of leaves with two rakes resting beside it. Two rakes? Lorelai was raking? She probably thought it was a tool one could use to play Shuffle.

Different varieties of trees dot the premises, maples, and hawthorns, even a yellow buckeye here and there. They are all in the process of turning and the world looks like it is caught in a blaze, especially as the day turns to dusk.

She turns back to Lorelai and her Dad and they are standing together, leaning against the truck, watching her expectantly.

"I love it," April says, sincere.

They unload April's luggage and trudge into the house. The foyer already feels cluttered with things, from Bert to two coat racks and a tall bucket full of umbrellas, brooms, and, oddly, fabric swaths.

"Okay, get ready for the tour," Lorelai says, putting a hand out to stop them from entering the living room.

"I already know what the house looks like," he says, making a move to walk around her, but she wags her finger at him.

"Yes, you do know what the house looks like, but not from my POV, so," she pushes him back besides April, "stand up, relax, and let Tour Guide Lorelai do her job."

He sighs and tries to looks moderately interested.

"Okay, hello there and welcome to the home formerly known as a house! If you'll follow me," she says in her best Vanna White voice.

They move into the living room, which is a mish mash of furniture and looks like it's in the process of a design implosion. The only sense of agreement seems to be on the color of the room, which is a super light cappuccino color.

"As you can see, the current owners of HFKAAH are having a tug-of-war over what the room where living happens should look like. Personally, I prefer to have couches and pillows and rugs and monkey lamps and potpourri hanging from the walls, but whatever."

"She wants it to look like Arabian Nights in here," he whispers to April and she looks up at him, partly horrified.

"And what do you want it to look like?" she asks.

"A hunting lodge in Minnesota named the Rustic Salmon," Lorelai answers in a sweet voice and he narrows his eyes.

"Okay, so I wanted a log type structure in the living room-"

"You want a log type fireplace and rustic cabinets so rustic that whatever inhabits rustic would inhabit the cabinets."

"It's better than having some Victorian era fireplace with wood nymphs carved into the wood. Wood nymphs! With harps and flutes and frolicking. Who wants to see frolicking on a fireplace?"

April raises her hand and Lorelai laughs in triumph.

"Ha! Two to one, bucko. And I haven't even told Rory yet, so, frolicking wood nymphs it is."

"Actually," she says, "I wanted to comment on the entertainment set up. Wow."

On the walls is an assortment of custom made espresso colored cube and angled shelves displaying DVDs, VHS tapes, CDs and a set of speakers. The entertainment unit, also the same color of the shelves, is modern, with a medium sized flat screen HDTV/DVD combo concealed in a hutch and a sleek stereo system displayed through glass doors.

"Oh, well, thank you, April. Your Dad actually did all of that," Lorelai says, proud, and they watch as he ducks his head, modest.

"No big deal. Lorelai gave me ten rough sketches of what it should resemble, so I could never really go wrong."

"Awww, he's so cute when he blushes," Lorelai coos and April bites back a laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, let's move on Tour Guide Lorelai. At the rate we're going, it'll be Sunday and we'll be writing odes to the tile," he grumbles.

"Oh, that sounds like a good idea. Ode to Spackle. How you make me cackle. Especially when we tackle…something, okay, nevermind, let's go on and ponder the mysteries of our three, yes three, eating places," Lorelai rambles, leading them to the completed dining room.

"This is a Lorelai Gilmore Almost Danes production. Notice the sea green paneled wall to my right, your left. Do you feel a slight tropical breeze with a hint of coconut and a fruity drink?"

She waits for them to nod and April nudges him until he does.

"Good. The dining table, although it doesn't look it, is an octagon table, meaning it can hold eight people. It's a nice dead banana leaf color ("Dead banana leaf?" April asks softly and he shakes his head and shrugs) and there is an extra table on the wall adjacent to the tropical one, which is we like to call 'Mini Survivor Island'."

She makes further remarks on the daffodil color of the remaining walls and they move into the kitchen, which is massive and bright, despite the beige painted walls. It reminds April of a country kitchen, clean and white.

"Um, okay, there's the refrigerator, which Paula Dean stocked herself," she points to a big white fridge with a bottom freezer, "there's uh, the stove, where his Lordship of the Good Stuff works his magic, the sink, cabinets, something my mother has in her kitchen- the second eating area, more cabinets, a pantry, which requires a more in depth examination later on, preferably before our all eighties movie marathon tonight, a quarto-table with pretty smelling flowers in the middle-the third eating area, and a door leading to the butcher house. Okay, come along," she says quickly, already leaving the kitchen.

"Wait, wait, wait," he calls and Lorelai slowly reappears, dragging her feet.

"Please don't do this to the kid, Luke. Really. It's an oven. You cook ravioli using the burners. Yes, great, let's continue."

He rolls his eyes and goes to the stove. "This is not just an oven, Lorelai, April. This is a Jenn-Air manual clean gas range with dual ovens. _Dual _ovens."

"Oh God," Lorelai sighs and takes a seat at the quarto-table, pulling out a chair and patting the seat for April.

"You might as well sit. This is Luke's section of the tour. Get ready to mourn fifteen minutes of your life," she states lowly as April takes a seat, clearly enjoying herself.

"Using this range," he continues, "I will be making Thanksgiving Dinner for twenty people. Twenty people who will be expecting turkey and mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and gravy and cranberry sauce, not from the can, mind you, because that stuff can be shipped into space, worm holed, black holed, teleported back to Earth and still taste like cranberry."

He moves to the island and runs a hand over the wood top. "This is a multi-level island with glass doors so while I'm making chicken cacciatore and one of you guys want to use red plates, which we have, by the way, you don't have to search for the red plates, they're there, staring at you from the multi-level island."

Lorelai gets up and takes him by the arm, beckoning April to follow her.

"Okay, that's enough. Let's get your father out of here before he starts in on the cabinets. You push, I pull." Lorelai says over his sputtering.

They manage to leave the kitchen without too much of a struggle and are in a sunny hall, painted the same dominant color of the dining room. On the walls are pictures and framed articles and awards.

"Rory came down and put up what pictures you see so far. She was too shy and Rory-like to hang the articles and certificates and Luke just got some of your awards from school, so if you see any certificates in a thousand year old frames, blame him," Lorelai whispers and April smiles, looking at every frame.

There are pictures of Lorelai and Rory in the diner, some with Luke, others without him, but she knows he's in the background. There are some with Rory and Lorelai around their house, eating and laughing. There are pictures from both of Rory's graduations, from her first day of school as a toddler to her Chilton days. There are a few pictures of Lorelai at the inn, with Sookie and Michel, the three of them arguing or grinning. There's some of her father when he was younger, with his family and in high school (she stands in front of these photos for a long time, examining how her grandfather and grandmother looked and trying to see herself in them-she has her grandfather's eyes, he tells her). There are a few of Jess, when he was a kid and at Truncheon, with her, her Dad, and Rory. There are pictures of her, from when she was small, splashing in the bathtub, playing in the snow and the rain and the dirt, getting her first pair of glasses, to when she first met her Dad (they laugh together at what is now dubbed the 'What?!' picture) and the times she spent in his diner, the birthday party, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Interspersed throughout all these frames are those of her father and Lorelai, most of the pictures in black and white. They aren't posing for any of the pictures. Either they are looking at something together, smiling or serious or she's obviously saying something that he finds utterly ridiculous, or they are looking at each other. She likes the ones where they are looking at each other. Whether they are grinning or not, she can see the power of each gaze, how strong their feelings are, how unbreakable this bond can be.

She looks at them and they are looking at the photos, Lorelai's arm wrapped around his. She points to something and he chuckles to himself. She is glad they are together again, happy that the diminished hope behind her father's eyes has disappeared and there's belief in them again. He seems totally at home and at peace and that plants a little seed of what it is to be in love in her and one day, when she is grown and her own love shines through her eyes like it does through her father's, she'll recognize where it comes from and why.

Lorelai finishes the tour of the rest of the ground floor and they go up the polished dark cherry wood staircase to the second floor, which smells like fresh paint and brown sugar.

"What's that smell?" April asks, sniffing the air.

They stop on the landing and Lorelai sniffs the air along with April.

"Smell?"

"Yeah, that sugary smell. Are there cookies somewhere or am I in a Splenda commercial? Whatever it is, it smells good."

"Oh, the trees," Lorelai realizes, turning to look at him, and he nods, totally not understanding what's going on.

"The trees?" April questions.

"Yeah, come on, I'll show you," Lorelai says, beckoning her to follow. They go to the landing, which has been outfitted with the well-worn couch from Lorelai's house and his armchair from the apartment. Lorelai brushes aside a lacy curtain and opens the already opened window a little wider. The view leads directly to semi-circle of trees surrounding a lone bench.

"The sugary smell comes from those trees, what are they called? Kimchi, Kenshi, Katsi…Luke, help me out here."

He sticks his head in between them. "Katsura. How do you get Kimchi from Katsura?" he asks, shaking his head. Lorelai ignores him and turns to April.

"During the fall, they emit this brown sugar smell. I named it the 'sweet spot' or 'Land of Sugary Death', Rory prefers to go with the generic 'Reading Trees', Luke just grumbles, and you have to go down there sometime so you can name it." She smiles at her and breathes in deeply.

"Hmmm, today they smell especially sugary."

"I didn't know you knew so much about plants, Lorelai," April says, impressed.

"Well, kid, I'm a veritable fountain of knowledge. Come on, the best part of the tour is this way."

They move away from the landing and go to a door opposite and a couple of feet over from the landing. All three of them stand in front of a plain white door with a silver handle, silent.

"Well, this is cool. Nice shade of white," April comments, looking up at Lorelai and her Dad.

That seems to snap them out of their trance and he scratches the back of his neck, glancing at Lorelai then down at her.

"Are you too old to close your eyes?"

She breaks out in a huge grin and puts her hands in front of her glasses. "Never to old to be surprised," she responds.

"Okay, then," he says with a grin and opens the door, Lorelai leading April inside the room by the shoulders.

"April, welcome to your semi-private second humble abode," Lorelai states and April uncovers her eyes.

She doesn't get to really see anything because Paul Anka jumps up into her arms and his furry face is nose to nose with hers.

"Paul Anka!" she exclaims and hugs the dog, rubbing his shaggy coat. Paul Anka lets out a short bark and April rubs his snout, as in their custom of greeting.

"He's been in here all week. Luke had to wait until Paul Anka comes to the door to give him his food and walk him," Lorelai says as she watches them greet.

"I did not wait," he says, raising an eyebrow.

April sets Paul Anka down and rubs his ears. "I see he's been using that citrus shampoo I sent for him."

"_You_ sent that stuff? That foamy, bubble bath stuff especially made for a dog's 'sensitive' skin? You?" he asks her, incredulous.

"Yeah, Dad," she answers in a 'duh' tone, "Paul Anka does have sensitive skin _and _he likes foam. And things that smell like oranges. Don't you, Paul Anka?" she finishes in a cutsie voice, rubbing his face.

Paul Anka barks again and turns his face away from her and to the window and April takes a look around her room for the first time and can honestly say she is perfectly surprised.

It is bare except for a bed parallel to the window. It looks like her old bed from the apartment, but it's bigger and higher and her purple and deep pink pillows are fluffier.

"Wow," she says, unable to say anything else.

"You looked shocked," he says with mock concern.

"No, I'm just…wow. It's really big. And the wood floor is really woody. And the walls are really white. And, yeah."

"We read somewhere that ultra modern is in. You know, bare walls, hard floors, 2001 Space Odyssey-esque. Do you like it?" Lorelai asks, trying her best not to give herself away.

April nods at them and walks over to the hard window seat and is about to sit when she notices a large manila envelope propped up against the side. She takes it and examines the aside. Her name is written at the top, in her father's tight handwriting.

"What's this?" she inquires as she weighs the envelope in her hand. It is bulky and heavy.

"Open it and see," he says and watches as she undoes the clasp and looks inside. Her face goes from curious to excited to 'Oh my gosh!' in three seconds flat and the next thing he knows, he's being hugged and Lorelai is being hugged and she's talking a mile a minute about where she wants this and what color the room should be and that she prefers bamboo blinds to curtains.

April and Lorelai start in on what theme would be appropriate and one she won't hate in two years and they dump the envelope on the bed and hop up, Paul Anka nestled next to April.

"I'll let you two get to it then," he says, but they are hotly debating on what color looks better with April's new tan, so he leaves them, grinning.

He is in the living room, watching Bobby Flay and mentally berating the man for butchering a perfectly good piece of tuna when Lorelai drops to his side, her head falling to his shoulder like a magnet.

His arm comes around her and his hand rubs her hipbone.

"Where's April?" he asks, not hearing any noise from upstairs.

"Poor kid passed out an hour ago and is probably dreaming of cerulean blue sheep outlined in marigold," she answers with a yawn.

"Where were you then?"

"I was hooking up her Internet and ordering some of the stuff she wanted. And then I got caught up in mooning over the shoe selection at Niemen Marcus."

He nods. "Well, are you hungry?"

She turns her head and kisses the underside of his chin. "Because you made pancakes?" she asks teasingly and he smiles.

"Yeah, right."

They get up and go into the kitchen and she takes a seat by the island while he looks through the fridge, taking out sandwich stuff.

She rests her head in her hand and watches him go to the freezer and take out a bag of fries and pre-heat the oven, then put the fries on a sheet and into the oven.

"What do you want? Chicken, roast beef?" he asks as he puts his head in the fridge again.

"Lamb chops? Breaded? Maybe a 24 oz. steak?" she responds and her eyes twinkle when his head comes back up to give her a look.

"All right, all right, chicken. And I want a chicken sandwich, not a sandwich chicken."

"A what?" he questions with a strange look.

"A sandwich chicken. You never heard of it?"

When he shakes his head, she sighs. "Of course, it has to be me, the last person in the world who should be allowed near a spatula, to teach the chef what a sandwich chicken is. What a pair we make."

"We do make quite a pair," he says as he slices leftover chicken breasts.

At his words, she feels suddenly like everything is in place. They do make quite a pair. They compliment each other totally and perfectly and right now, watching him with his tussled short hair, wearing his black flannel and worn jeans, attentively placing chicken on sliced bread while her soon-to-be-daughter sleeps upstairs in a heap of paint swatches and fabric cut-outs-she can't imagine her life any other way than this moment, when she's with him and in his life. She is again astounded by the amount of love she has for him, at the stirring of emotions that throw her whenever she sits down to think about the two of them, then the four of them, then maybe more of them.

"Should I propose to you or should you propose to me?" she asks, the thought popping out of her mouth before she can filter it.

He stops midway through slicing the bread in half. He waits for some quippy comment, but none comes. He runs the knife straight through in one quick stroke and sets it down, turning to face her, meeting her serious blue stare.

"I don't know. I really don't know."

They look at each other and she gets up, coming around the island to stand in front of him, her hands clasped against her thighs.

"I know I'm going to be Mrs. Backwards Baseball Cap Danes. I know that you're going to be Mr. Junkie Four Stomachs Gilmore. I know, but we haven't talked about it. We haven't said out loud that we're getting married in February under the chuppah and that we'll be having lobster and that the wedding cake is chocolate coffee cake with white chocolate sauce. When are we going to say it out loud?" she whispers, staring at him intently.

He stares back at her, trying to formulate the words.

Just then, the buzzer on the oven goes off. He makes a move to tend to it, but she is there first, taking a dishtowel and pulling out the fries, setting the sheet on top of the burners. She goes back to standing in front of him and he is once again under her intense stare.

Shit, I'm in deep shit. _Yeah, no disagreement there. _What should I say? What should I do? Get down on bended knee? _The bended knee thing-not such a great idea, especially since it'll look like you're just doing it to do it and that's not what you want to do, is it? _No, but I have to say something. She wants it to be out there, in the air. And so do I. _Then open your mouth and say SOMETHING._

"We should serve pecan praline ice cream with the chocolate coffee cake. And we shouldn't get married in the winter. You are a spring person-I want to see you in cream in the spring. Oh, and we will be having lobster, you can tell Sookie since I know she's the BFOB, BFTBO, BFTOB whatever. I'll even succumb to Emily throwing us an engagement party," he rambles and is relieved to see her grin.

"You like ice cream?" she asks.

He lifts a shoulder. "I do indulge in sugar and cream now and again."

"I'm a spring person?"

"You remind me of spring. The way you smell, the clothes you wear, everything. I feel renewed every time I'm around you."

He takes her hand and rubs the skin between her thumb and forefinger, sending all thoughts from his mind and concentrating on how warm and heavy her hand in his is. This is their relationship-warm and heavy.

"I remember that morning when I stood before you, my truck packed and I told you that my life isn't real without you there, sharing it with me. No, don't pull back," he says when he feels her backing away. He looks up into her eyes and he can see her naked fear, her bewilderment at him for bringing up the painful past.

"Stand still and listen to me, because I'm making this real, I'm going to put us out there. So listen, okay?" he asks, his face and stance serious, his eyes similar to that glittering blue whenever he is upset.

She nods and he continues.

"I remember what I said and that it was true. And when I walked away from you and got into my truck, it was true. When I punched Christopher, it was true. When I told you that you were Lorelai Gilmore and I was just the guy who poured your coffee, it was still true. Every single time I had to wake up in the morning and you weren't there, it was true. And the pain went from a sharp stab to a dull ache to a faint constant throb. I thought I wouldn't make it through losing you. I didn't want to make it, but I had to. Just like you had to cope, I had to cope. I found relief in April and Liz and TJ and Doula and Lane and Zach and the twins. I even found it in Kirk, but if you tell anyone that, especially Kirk, I swear I will deny it to my last breath and I will insist you had gotten a hold of a peyote laced pop tart."

She smiles at that and squeezes his hand and he takes a deep breath. "But that didn't erase the truth-that without you there, my life wasn't real. What I feel for you, what I've always felt for you, is much more than love. It is going to bed with the absolute certainty that you'll be there when I wake up in the morning. It is the weight of your hand in mine and the warmth from your body; it is the taste of your mouth. It is looking at you and knowing that you have made such an impact on my life that without you in it, it will never be full."

Silent tears streak her face and he wipes them away.

"There are no words for this much more than love, but I love you. And I do want to be Mr. Junkie Four Stomachs Gilmore, so, let's get married in the spring and have pecan praline ice cream, okay?"

She brings their hands up to her mouth and kisses his knuckles, then kisses him, softly.

"Okay," she breathes against his mouth and he kisses her back passionately, rocking her so that she has to grab his flannel in order to hold on. She gives as good as she gets, so good, that he has to back up, bumping into the wooden cutting board and sending her chicken sandwich and the other fixings to the floor.

They break away at the resulting crash and stare at the mess. Lorelai starts to laugh and it's infectious. They bend down and start cleaning up, still laughing.

"I'll make you another sandwich," he says when everything's off the floor and their laughter has settled into their eyes.

"No, this is still good," she responds and bites into it, chewing it happily.

"Oh, I forgot, the two second rule," he realizes and goes to get her fries.

"Luke," she sets down her sandwich and reaches for him, wrapping her arms around his middle, "what you said, that was, it was beautiful. It was the most beautiful thing I ever heard and to think I was about to sock you in the mouth when you first started speaking."

He lifts a shoulder, his ingrained modesty evident in his eyes. "Well, good thing you didn't sock me or I would have had to say it with a bloody mouth."

She searches his face for a couple of seconds, a new kind of wonder in her gaze. "You have a penchant for words, my friend."

"Did they work?"

She nods emphatically. "Yeah, they definitely worked. But what do I say? How can I even-"

He stops her by kissing her lips. "You don't have to say anything. Just keep doing what you're doing. That's all I want."

She looks unconvinced and he has to grin, because words are Lorelai's lifeblood and he knows she doesn't like to be speechless.

"Okay," he leans over with her arms still around him and grabs a few French fries, "how about this: we write our own vows. And whenever you feel the urge to try something really," he waves the French fries around, searching for a word, "Elizabeth Browning, you can try it on me. Deal?" he finishes, holding the fries in front of her mouth.

She hems and haws and screws her eyes up and finally, she opens her mouth for the fries.

"Deal," she says after chewing and she puts her head on his shoulder and his hands rub themselves up and down her spine.

"Can I add another provision to our deal?" she whispers against his ear and he nods.

"Can you cry and blow your nose while I'm saying it?"

She can practically feel him rolling his eyes. "Not for Elizabeth Browning, no."

"Then who? Lord Bryon? T.S. Eliot?"

"No, not Bryon. Eliot, I can maybe get some moisture in my eye for."

"Nah, moisture ain't gonna cut it. I want you to be in the throes of emotion, I want Niagara. Someone has to elicit Niagara, Luke, besides me and _Magnolia_."

He snorts. "If anything, those were tears from the Vix you had to put under my eyes to make me watch that damn movie. I'd rather redo the Barbara Streisand marathon than watch one second of that movie again."

She pats a shoulder blade, "I can arrange that young Luke. What about Babs? Can she do the job?"

"No. And she's not a poet, no matter how many times you speak her songs, it's not poetry. No."

"Well, give me a name. Any name."

"Charles Bukowski."

She lifts her head off his shoulder a little. "Charles Bukowski?" she questions, skeptical.

He nods, defensive. "So? He was a visionary."

She drops her head back on his shoulder with a laugh. "I'll remember you said that when I recite 'You' for you. I'll make you breakfast afterwards."

He sighs, thinking. "Okay, okay. Pablo Neruda."

She grins. "So Pablo's the one that could really make that heart bleed, huh?"

"The one and only man, yes."

"Then I'll try to flavor my recitations with some Pablo Neruda."

She gives him a peck on his cheek and nuzzles her face in his neck, liking the feel of his stubble against her brow. He starts to rock them side-to-side and she feels her eyes drifting shut. Her whole world is warm and flannel-clad and smells like bleach and sweat and oat soap. She is inimitably happy that this is the case.

"Luke?" she asks drowsily and he rubs her neck.

"Yeah babe?"

"Can we have dinner for breakfast tomorrow?"

He decides against arguing with her since she's clearly tired. "Sure."

"Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"April put in a request for banana pancakes tomorrow, so don't give her any fries."

He chuckles. "Will do. Now let's get you up to bed."

He leads her to the stairs and he puts her ahead of him as they start to climb.

"Luke?"

"Yes Lorelai?"

"I'll tell you what a sandwich chicken is tomorrow."


End file.
